Beseiged
by
Laurel Ames

Although Laurel Ames likes to write stories set in the nineteenth
century, she writes from personal experience.  Laurel and her husband
live on a farm, complete with five horses, a long springhouse, carriage
house and smokehouse made of bricks kilned on the farm.

Laurel Ames

Recent titles by the same author:

PLAYING TO WIN

MILLS &. BOON

I owe many thanks to Mr.  Edward W. Eckman for valuable research
material and expert advice about the Battle of Waterloo, and to Dr.
John P. Sokol, who supplied information on the fate of the wounded
after the battle.

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if you did, you should be aware it is stolen property as it was
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All the characters in this book have no existence outside the
imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone
bearing the same name or names.  They are not even distantly inspired
by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents
are pure invention.

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MILLS & BOON and MILLS & BOON with the Rose Device are registered
trademarks of the publisher.

First published in Great Britain 1997

Harlequin Mills & Boon Limited,

Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 ISR Barbara J.
Miller 1995

ISBN 0 263 80437 2

Set in Times Roman 10 on'll pt.

04-9710-88153 CI

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Caledonian International Book
Manufacturing Ltd, Glasgow

Chapter One

London, May 1815

What is so important, Charlie, that you must see me before the
theater?"  Elizabeth Falcrest asked the impatient young lieutenant wh
waited at the bottom of the stairs.  He smiled as she came down to
greet him and he pulled her into one of the salons.

"I might not get a chance to talk to you again before I leave.  I was
supposed to be in Belgium by now.  I only got leave to stay two extra
days by telling them Mother is ill."

"But she isn't, is she?"  Elizabeth looked up at him with her blue eyes
full of ready sympathy.

"No, of course not.  I wanted to be with you.  Elizabeth, will you
marry me?"

"Charlie, we have been through this before.  Mother would never agree
to such a match and I doubt very much if my brother would, either."

"You are of age.  And it won't be so bad living with Mother and Father.
You get on Well with them."

Elizabeth regretted using their mutual lack of fortune as an excuse not
to marry Charlie.  She should have told him the truth, that she did not
love him.  She had no qualms about turning her other suitors away with
such a statement.

She had turned away a score of them, but never before on the eve of
war.

"Charlie, I could never marry a soldier, not knowing from one day to
the next--"

"But I won't be a soldier when I get back.  I plan to sell out as soon
as the war is over.  Then we can be married."

More than ever Elizabeth wished she could say that she was in love with
someone else, but there was no one.  She had almost begun to think she
was not the sort of person who could fall in love.  "But there is not
time--no time to even think."  She pressed her hand to her forehead,
trying to see a way out of the tangle.

"That's why I want your promise to marry me ... if I come back."

"Don't say that, Charlie.  Of course you'll come back.  Clive did."

"Yes, and look at him, so crippled he can't even sit a horse."

Tears welled up in Elizabeth's eyes, making them seem even more
luminous.

"Why are you crying?  It isn't your fault his leg didn't mend right.
You should not have been nursing him any way."

"I don't want you to go away thinking I don't care about you, because I
do."

"Just promise to marry me.  You needn't tell anyone.  If I don't return
no one will ever know.  And if I do come back we'll work it out
somehow."

"But I--"

"How can I go with a quiet mind unless I know I have you to come back
toT'

"Charlie, you have always been very dear to me," she said slowly,
drying her eyes.  "You're Clive's best friend, but I never thought in
all these years..."

"You don't suppose your brother Clive is the reason I haunt your
house?"  Charlie asked impatiently.

"Well, yes."

"All right, I suppose it was at first.  But I've been in love with you
for years.  I know half the men in London axe in love with you, but I
thought when you rejected all of them it was because you were waiting
for me."  Charlie looked at her intently, unlike his usual jovial
self.

Elizabeth was speechless.  "I just think this is a bad time to make
such a..."

"Elizabeth, this is the only time.  I'll be on my way to Belgium by
dawn.  Most likely I'll never see you again.  Please say you'll marry
me."  He grasped her hands and pressed them, staring deep into her
eyes.  She couldn lt look away from him.

"Very well," Elizabeth whispered.

"That's the girl," he said, kissing her lightly.  "Here comes your
mother."  Charlie Cairnbrooke dragged Elizabeth back out into the hall
as Victoria Falcrest's feet tapped down the broad stairs.

"Are you feeling unwell, Elizabeth?"  her mother asked.  "We need not
go out tonight."

"No, I am fine," Elizabeth lied, feeling that an evening at the theater
was preferable to making small talk with Charlie.  How could she have
let it happen?  She had been.  manipulated all her life.  If not by her
mother then by her oldest brother, William.  She disregarded for the
moment that both of these people loved her dearly.  They took every
decision away from her.  Now she had let Charlie do the same thing. She
would tell him the engagement was off just as soon as he got back from
Belgium ... if he came back.  That thought whipped her feelings in the
other direction, making her be kind to Charlie from a sense of remorse
in case he should die, the whole time angry at him for backing her into
a corner.  It was such an odd mix of emotions it made her quite giddy. 
It was a relief when Charlie left them after the first act to go see to
his baggage.  He would be sailing the next day, perhaps on the very
sloop Clive was loading, so they would not see him again.  But he left
them both with no more than a respectful peck on the cheek.

Captain Jason Weir led his troop of Royal Horse Artillery to the docks
in good time for loading.  The ship's crew was still busy stacking
commercial goods into the cargo nets and swinging them onto the dock.
The vessel did not look nearly big enough to accommodate his guns and
men.  Jason knew they would be packed head to tail like the horses for
the short crossing to Belgium.

He gave the order to rest and strode across the gangway toward the man
who seemed to be directing this Confusion in the middle of the night.
"Captain Weir, come over from Woolwich.  Here are my orders," Jason
said with a salute as he handed over his papers.

"Clive Falcrest."  He returned the salute automatically before he
caught himself, for he no longer wore a uniform.  "What all have you
got there?"  Clive asked tiredly.

"A howitzer, five nine-pounders, 170 men and the same of horse.  We
haven't a horse to spare.  I hope we can find some in Belgium."

"How many wagons?"  asked Clive, calculating what he could fit on the
sloop.

"Ten wagons and three carts," Captain Jason Weir reported.

"We can take half your troop this trip.  They'll start loading as soon
as the rest of the cargo is off."

"Do my lads get a night on the town?"

"Best not, it may take most of the night to load and they will have to
be here at daybreak anyway."

Jason went to report the news to his brigade as Clive limped down the
gangway.

"How did they take it?"  Clive asked when Jason returned.

"Well enough, considering they have been training these three months at
Woolwich and most of them have not gotten leave to go home in that
time."

"is this a new troop then?"

"Many of them, but some were with me in the Peninsula."

"I'm surprised they didn't keep you in France."  "They wanted to get us
on half pay as soon as possible.  Of course, that was when they thought
the war was over--Falcrest.  It just hit me.  You're in the cavalry,
aren't you?"  Jason removed his helmet to wipe his brow, and his blond
hair put Clive in mind of his sister Elizabeth and home.

"Not anymore--bad leg.  I'm just a clerk now, and that's a temporary
appointment with the quartermaster, not a real commission."

"That's important, too.  Just make sure you send us enough to eat."

"There is no dearth of salted beef."

"That stuff can kill you.  I can see I'll have to buy food from the
local farmers again."

"You haven't seen your family, either, then?"  Clive asked, thinking of
the late supper that would be waiting for him.

"I was on convalescent leave until February, but they have kept me at
Woolwich, supervising training at the academy until yesterday.  I never
really fancied myself a teacher until then."

"Come home to supper with me then.  We'll be back at two o'clock to see
the horses loaded."

"Won't your family mind?"

"They would be glad to see a smiling face rather than my scowl."

Jason went to tell his second Captain that he would be absent for a few
hours.  The catcalls and whistles that followed Jason as he and C!I've
made their way to Clive's curricle made them both grin.

"They think I am taking you to a bawdy house," Clive concluded.

"Does them no harm to think I'm human.  Besides, if they knew where I
am really going, they would be jealous."

Jason whistled at the grand, columned exterior of the Falcrest town
house.  Clive laughed, ushered him inside with a slap on the back and
introduced him to his brother William and Marissa, William's wife, who
had been waiting a late supper for him.

"Clive's friends are always welcome," William assured him, shaking his
hand warmly as he inclined his graying head.  Jason could tell they
were brothers even though William was several inches taller and most of
a decade older than Clive.

"Actually we barely know each other," Jason said ruefully.  "I'm just a
hungry soldier he has dragged home.  Does he often do so?"

"Not often enough," Marissa said, taking his arm and leading the way
into the dining room, her dark curls bouncing.  "What do you think of
Boney's escape?"  she demanded as she loaded a plate with ham and
chicken from the sideboard.

"Damned careless of them to let him get loose again after all the
trouble we were put to catching him," Jason answered.

She handed him the plate and told him to sit down in a motherly way at
variance with her years.  William poured him some wine and Jason
laughed at their casual manners, talking quite freely to them between
mouthfuls.  "It's incredible how fast he has moved across Europe.  I
fear we can' never be ready in time."

"Counting the five thousand from Ireland," Clive said, "I calculate we
have shipped close on twenty thousand troops to Belgium, but mostly
they are without battle experience.  If only there was time to get some
of the Peninsular veterans back from America."

"But won't they be worn to the bone anyway?"  asked Marissa.  "I know
what you looked like when you got back from Spain."

"Typhus is never becoming," William said dryly.  "Besides, wishing
won't get them here."

"We are giving the artillery priority passage, of course," Clive
offered.  "That's why you are going tomorrow."

"We have not nearly enough guns," Jason said gravely, "but our cannon
count for more than the French, so they will have to do."

"It may all hang on how fast the Russian troops can reach Belgium,"
C!I've said.  "We are counting on the Prussians being there in time. 
By July or August we should be as fit as we can be to meet Napoleon."

"When will Napoleon engage us, do you think?"  William asked as though
he were still in the army.

"Not when we want.  That's for certain," Jason said.  "He'll try to
knock the armies out one by one before they can join up.  It's his only
chance and a desperate one at that."

"So he will strike before we are ready," Marissa concluded, very much
as though she had a part in it herself.

"I fear so," Jason said, meeting her dark, unhappy eyes.  "Don't worry.
We shall do."

"Yes, I know," she said sadly.  "I just wish there was something I
could do."

"You have.  You are sending me away a happy man."  They heard voices in
the hall and Elizabeth and Victoria whisked in, kissing Clive and
greeting Jason warmly.  Jason's jaw dropped and he mumbled something to
Elizabeth, a vision in floating, spangled gauze.  Jason thought for a
second he must be drunk.  C!I've's sister looked like a fairy queen,
just floating in from a midnight gambol n the moonlight.  No earthly
woman had a right to look so ethereal.

Marissa nudged William and grinned.

"Is the play over?"  Clive asked.

"No, we left after the second act," Elizabeth said, filling her plate
from the sideboard.  "I had much rather hear what you have been
doing."

"You and Mother just want to make sure Marissa has stuffed me properly.
They take good care of me," Clive said to Jason.

It was as well Jason had eaten before Elizabeth arrived.  He was too
numb to do more than sip his wine as he gazed at her.

It was a look well-known to Elizabeth.  She laughed and joked with
Jason to put him at ease.  She was feeling rather relieved now that
Charlie had left.  She even shed her diaphanous wrap, but that did not
help, for it only revealed her beautiful white shoulders.  Jason envied
the golden curls that brushed them so carelessly as she laughed and
tossed her head.  He had to shake himself back to a sense of reality so
as not to make a complete fool of himself.

"Are you one of the Weirs from Hereford?"  Victoria asked.  "I met a
Lady Weir years ago before I was married."

"Yes, my father is Lord John Weir.  They used to come up to town every
year.  Now the house is shut up most of the time since Mother has been
ill."

"I'm sorry to hear that.  What is wrong?"  Victoria asked.  "Mother,"
William said warningly.

"It's all right," Jason said.  "It almost seems like a wasting
melancholy.  My oldest brother broke his neck on the hunting fields a
few months before I got shipped back from Spain with a hole through my
shoulder.  I think it was all too much for her."

"It can't be easy for her to let you go again," Elizabeth said
sympathetically.

"There's no help for it.  The army is my life."

"Yes," agreed Clive.  "These Royal Artillery boys have to earn their
rank.  They can't buy and sell it like cavalry officers."

"But you must plan on something after the army," Elizabeth insisted
anxiously.

"No, I expect them will always be a war somewhere.  You know---One son
for the land, one for the church, and one for the army.  I was lucky to
be third.  Poor Alton has to give up his studies and take up farming
now.  Then them is Era--Emily, my sister, a delightful child, at least
she used to be.  Something happened while I Was in Spain."  "What?"
asked Elizabeth, her blue eyes fearful.

"She grew up," Jason said, laughing.  "Now I am forever triPPing over
her country swains like a litter of puppies underfoot.

"Wait until she gets a little older," Clive warned, rolling an eye at
Elizabeth.  "The suitors get more serious and lay about the house like
a pack of hungry hounds."

"Clive!"  Elizabeth pleaded, flushing but smiling down at her plate.

"That puts me in mind of something," Clive said, finally pushing his
plate away.  "Who is this fellow Bellecoeur I've been falling over
lately?"

"French?"  Jason asked involuntarily.  "Sorry, it's none of my
business."

"Racine Bellecoeur," Victoria said.  "His father was a French merchant,
but he's dead now."

"That doesn't make Bellecoeur all right," Clive maintained.  "What if
he's a spy or something?"

"Afraid they might find out how much salt beef we are sending to
Europe?"  William asked, and they all chuckled except Victoria.

"His mother is English," she continued, "and Racine has a vast fortune,
or he will when she dies."

"I wouldn't have him, Elizabeth," Clive advised.  "There's no telling
how long you will have to wait for his mother to turn up her toes."

"Clive!"  Victoria admonished.

"As if I cared about money," Elizabeth said sadly, sparing a thought
for her impoverished fiance and sighing heavily.

"People say Marissa married me for my money," William volunteered.

"They do not!"  Marissa punched him in the shoulder hard enough to make
him flinch.  "What they say is that you married me for Graythoru."

"What's Graythoru?  A house?"  Jason asked as he was expected to.

"A great gray stallion she wouldn't sell me for any amount.  I had to
marry her to get control of the beast."

"You haven't got control of him yet," Marissa challenged.  "Else he
wouldn't so often dump you in a ditch."  "Once!"  William vowed.

"I have seen you both and in a ditch often enough to want never to hunt
with you," Elizabeth said.

"Hunting is dangerous," Victoria informed them.  "I've always said it.
Look at Jason's poor brother."

"It might have helped if he had been sober," Jason offered.

"Speaking of sober, I'm not and I do need to be to finish my work
tonight," Clive stated flatly.  "Have you got them making any coffee,
Mafissa?  I shall need cups of it."

The impromptu party retired to the salon for an hour.  While the men
had their coffee Marissa played the pianoforte and Elizabeth sang.  She
sang about green fields and lovers, nothing about the war.  As
Elizabeth watched Jason gazing at her she said a silent prayer that
nothing would happen to this particular man.  It was not just that he
seemed to represent all the dutiful soldiers who had passed through
their house in the part few weeks on their way to an uncertain future.
Even though she had only known him a short hour, she would feel Jason's
loss most particularly.  Why had he not crossed her path before when
there would have been leisure to get to know him?  He was the sort of
man she could have fallen in love with and not because he was handsome.
It was his sense of humor she liked best.  He made all of them laugh
and he did not mind a joke on himself.  She wished desperately to keep
him from leaving.  But she felt that way about all of them.  Then she
remembered she should not feel that way about any of them anymore.
Elizabeth's face went suddenly sad when she contrasted what her life
could have been like with Jason to the life that lay before her with
Charlie.  Only then did she realize what a tragic mistake she had
made.

Jason caught the change in mood and smiled at her in sympathy as she
sat down near him.  "You look like Em when I left her," Jason said.

"I wish you didn't have to go."

"You will forget all about me in a fortnight."

"No, I won't," she said desperately, then blushed becomingly She had
been in society long enough to keep her poise in most situations.  She
had lost it with Charlie.  He had surprised her and trapped her.  She
hated herself for being so weak.  She knew instinctively that Jason
would never presume to do such a thing to a woman.  Then it occurred to
her that his affections might already be engaged.  She looked up at
him, just barely keeping herself from asking such a rude question and
his worshipful look answered her.  There was no one else.

Exactly the same question had been running through Jason's mind.  He
had never taken more than a passing interest in women.  With his lack
of expectations he had no fight to.  But Elizabeth could never be
ignored.  They seemed to know each other's minds, to fit so easily
together, the way he fitted into her family if only for an evening.

By the time Clive judged they should head back for the docks, Jason
could take his leave of Elizabeth with some sort of composure.  Jason
thought that if it was his last night on earth he would not have spent
it elsewhere.

"You should have warned me, Clive," Jason whispered in the hall as they
retrieved their hats from the footman.

"About what?"

"Your sister, man.  Don't you realize how beautiful she is?"

"Yes, but I'm used to it."

"She must think me a tongue-tied booby."

"She is used to her effect on men.  She did try to put you at ease."

"I think she would always affect me so."

They were almost to the outside door when a stuffed animal came
pin-wheeling past their heads and landed in a heap against the wall.

"It's a sheep," Jason observed, picking up the grubby hand-sewn toy.

"Throw it up," Amy commanded from the landing at the top of the stairs.
She was not tall enough to look over the railing at them so she had to
peek through the banisters, which framed her impish face, making her
look like an elf peeping out of a coppice.

"You get back to bed, Amy, before your mother catches you," Clive
warned.

"Please, Clive," Amy begged as she stood on one tiny bare foot.  "You
throw it up."

"No, you'll have me at this an hour and I have work to do yet
tonight."

Jason laughingly tossed the limp sheep up to her.  )kmy fetched it and
threw it back again.  Clive picked it up this time.

"Here, James."  C!I've thrust the ragged toy on the young footman, who
blushed and grinned.  "You play with her.  That is what you were doing,
wasn't it?"

Jason looked over his shoulder as he opened the door and' saw the
hapless toy go flying up only to come sailing down again with a plop.

"Hasn't she got a ball?"  Jason asked.

"Amy's no fool.  A ball would make too much noise."  "Oh, right."

"Wait!"  commanded Elizabeth, who was coming down the hall carrying a
hamper that appeared to be much too heavy for her.  "I'm glad I caught
you," she said as Jason stooped to relieve her of her burden.

"What's this?"  he asked.

"If I know my sister, it is provisions for your journey," Clive said
with a chuckle.  "She won't trust me to see you are fed."

"I don't know what to say, except thank you."

"You will be careful, won't you?"  Elizabeth asked desperately, looking
up at Jason's handsome, embarrassed face, a sheen of tears making her
eyes sparkle.

He gazed at her in amazement then, for she had said it only to him.
"Since you ask it, yes I will."

Each would have said more if not surrounded by Clive, a footman and the
laughing Amy.  As it was, "Good-bye" was the only thing that seemed
appropriate.

"Your sister, man.  Don't you realize how beautiful she is?"

"Yes, but I'm used to it."

"She must think me a tongue-tied booby."

"She is used to her effect on men.  She did try to put you at ease."

"I think she would always affect me so."

They were almost to the outside door when a stuffed animal came
pin-wheeling past their heads and landed in a heap against the wall.

"It's a sheep," Jason hand-sewn toy.

"Throw it up," Amy the top of the stairs.  She observed, picking up the
grubby commanded from the landing at was not tall enough to look over
the railing at them so she had to peek through the banisters, which
framed her impish face, making her look like an elf peeping out of a
coppice.

"You get back to bed, Amy, before your mother catches you," Clive
warned.

"Please, Clive," Amy begged as she stood on one tiny bare foot.  "You
throw it up."

"No, you'll have me at this an hour and I have work to do yet
tonight."

Jason laughingly tossed the limp sheep up to her.  Amy fetched it and
threw it back again.  Clive picked it up this time.

"Here, James."  Clive thrust the ragged toy on the young footman, who
blushed and grinned.  "You play with her.  That is what you were doing,
wasn't it?"

Jason looked over his shoulder as he opened the door and saw the
hapless toy go flying up only to come sailing down again with a plop.

"Hasn't she got a ball?"  Jason asked.

"Amy's no fool.  A ball would make too much noise."  "Oh, right."

"Wait!"  commanded Elizabeth, who was coming down the hall carrying a
hamper that appeared to be much too heavy for her.  "I'm glad I caught
you," she said as Jason stooped to relieve her of her burden.

"What's this?"  he asked.

"If I know my sister, it is provisions for your journey," Clive said
with a chuckle.  "She won't trust me to see you are fed."

"I don't know what to say, except thank you."

"You will be careful, won't you?"  Elizabeth asked desperately, looking
up at Jason's handsome, embarrassed face, a sheen of tears making her
eyes sparkle.

He gazed at her in amazement then, for she had said it only to him.
"Since you ask it, yes I will."

Each would have said more if not surrounded by Clive, a footman and the
laughing Amy.  As it was, "Good-bye" was the only thing that seemed
appropriate.

Chapter Two

The prelude to battle was always so much more awful than the actual
fighting itself, Jason reflected.  Suspense gnawed at you.  The drums
stirred your blood one way or the other, either to heroism or terror.
By the middle of the thing it was just a job and by the end of it, if
you were still alive, you were half-deaf from the noise of clash and
cannon, and feeling nothing.  He had often thought that the most
dangerous troops Napoleon possessed were his massive corps of drummers.
The English had nothing like them, usually no more than one drummer per
battalion.  These were the boys who had beat the alarms at night in the
encampments in Spain or rolled out the order to halt when they heard it
coming back to them on the long marches.  Else the officers would not
have known what to do.  For all their determination and courage the
English drummers were no match for the massed French bands when they
beat the electrifying "Batterie Fanfare" or the ominous "Pas de
Charge."  The sheer volume of it terrified raw recruits and veterans
alike.  It made Jason's insides vibrate with a strange mixture of dread
and excitement.  It made him think faster, calculate ranges and
trajectories in the blink of an eye.

The thunderous French barrage that began at one o'clock had
surprisingly little effect except on the artillery crews, the forward
pickets and Bylandt's brigade, which was in the open.  The main part of
the army was lying on the reverse slope of the hill and not even taking
hits from bouncing shots that might have gone over the crest if the
ground had been dry.  As it was, these were swallowed up by the mud.
The massive French infantry charges that came next were awe inspiring
but did not daunt the gunners, Jason was happy to note.  Unaccountably
some of D'Erlon's corps had formed up in column in what could only have
been a tragic mistake in orders.  It was child's play for Jason's men
to mow them down with round after round of shot.

It was the third day of battle for the Anglo-Dutch forces and the first
that Jason's troop had been engaged.  He hoped the thing would be
resolved on this day, for if the losses among his gun crews were
representative of the rest of the army, there would be precious little
left to fight with tomorrow.  The heat and smoke were almost unbearable
by now.  The blue jackets of the Royal Horse Artillery were rent and
grimy.  The faces of the gun crews, and Jason's, as well, were smeared
with soot and they all coughed as they swabbed, loaded powder, shot and
wadding, and tamped and fired.  The guns were heating, too, not enough
to fear an explosion yet but they might have to rest them in rotation
if there was no order to let up.

A horde of French cavalry came swarming up over the rise and Jason gave
the order to leave off firing and retreat to the safety of the infantry
formed up in squares.  The cuirassiers jumped or pushed between the
hedge through which Jason's men had cut embrasures for the guns and
wreaked havoc among any gun crews who had not reached their red-coated
protectors who formed squares bristling with bayonets around them.  The
French were soon driven back by persistent firing from the infantry,
but not without cost to the red squares.  They were shrinking as the
red-coated bodies piled higher.  Vaguely Jason concluded that the
scarlet coats were a good idea.  One couldn't really see all that much
blood on the English bodies compared to the French, which were piling
up in front of them.

The gun crews could fire with as few as two men, not quickly, of
course.  Jason was not above manning a gun, or even swabbing and
loading if need be, before he would send behind the lines for drivers
to man the guns.  The gunnery crews were as little likely to break as
the infantry in square.  His men's loyalty to him was their undoing. He
expected them to stand and die with him and they did.

It was in the intervals between attacks, when they had done all they
could for the wounded and the guns, that Jason would take a mental trip
to High Stand, his home in Hereford.  He could see for miles in two
directions from the schoolroom where he and his brother Geoffrey had
read tales of famous battles.  He never imagined he'd be fighting one.
The winds had brought the scents of all the seasons in those windows to
them.  The place was so fixed in his mind as the focal point of his
world, he was so irresistibly drawn there in his mind, that he was sure
when he died he would float back there.  How could he not?  It was the
one place where he belonged.

A single shot and a groan brought him back to Belgium.  He gave the
order to commence firing at the troop of caw airy advancing across the
plain.  They could get in a good few shots since the mud and the bodies
slowed the horses to a trot.  Jason dreaded these charges more than
facing the infantry, and not just because you were more likely to get
your head lopped off.  He hated firing at horses.  He had lost the two
he had taken to Spain for traveling.  Standard had broken a leg
climbing the Pyrenees and had to be shot.  Banner had his head taken
off by a cannonball a hundred yards behind the line.

He was not one of those officers who spent the battle on horseback
anyway.  It might be an inspiring sight, but not if a French skirmisher
or rifleman shot you off it, as they were encouraged to do.  Wellington
would have decried such ungentlemanly conduct.

As the French heavy cavalry closed to three hundred yards, Jason gave
the order to load canister.  The screams of horses and men were close
enough to rip through him.  The gunners manned their pieces until the
last possible moment before seeking shelter in the squares or between
the wheels of the cannon.  Those cavalry that made it through wreaked
havoc--not just the sword-wielding cuirassiers, but their snapping,
stamping mounts.  The beasts did not have the average horse's aversion
to trampling on soft bodies.  They were used to riding over human
flesh, living and dead.  That such creatures could be subverted to hate
and kill seemed particularly horrifying to Jason, but then the men who
rode them suffered the same corruption, as did Jason himself!fi

Each gun crew had a man ready with a spike to drive in the touchhole in
case they should be overrun, but an unexpected surge of British cavalry
forced the French back.  There was a quiet interval for them to tend
the wounded and remove them to the safety of the squares, while they
waited for their own cavalry to return.  Not that any patch of ground
was safe.  The ground inside the squares was as pocked with shot as
anywhere else and, if possible, it was even more littered with dead and
dying.

The cannonading resumed, and the French guns finally found their range.
If Jason could have acted on his own discretion he would have aimed one
or two of his guns to return the pounding they were now taking.  He
could have easily calculated the range he needed.  Seven or eight
hundred yards was an easy shot.  But Wellington's orders expressly
forbade any artillery officer from dueling with enemy artillery.  It
was not gentlemanly.  Ironically Wellington thought cannon fire should
be directed only against infantry and cavalry.

Jason could not remember when it had ceased to be a gentleman's war.
Instead of breaking off at the end of a battle, cavalry now followed
and harried a defeated army.  It made sense to Jason.  The enemy you
killed today could not fight you tomorrow.  Napoleon had made it a war
of annihilation, but Wellington still had his scruples about

some things.  It made things difficult and costly.  Whether it would
cost them the battle remained to be seen.  It was almost a relief when
the pounding let up and the infantry made another charge.

It was these charges and the cannonading that were taking their toll on
the British.  Jason fired as long as he could into the approaching
French infantry without endangering the British line.  It was only
another rally of British cavalry that prevented the line breaking this
time and Jason 'feared another charge.  He commenced firing again when
their men had cleared the field.

Jason saw another cavalry charge forming up.  He looked about him for a
square of infantry to drag the wounded into.  There were no longer
enough infantry left to protect them in this part of the field, so they
formed up by the hedges between the guns as some impediment to the
cuirassiers on their sweating chargers.  Jason picked up his saber to
swing at any horseman persistent enough to try to overset his cannon
with a rope.  But the cuirassiers' swords were longer than his saber
and he could seldom get in a cut at a mounted man without risking his
head.  He was perplexed by the scruples that prevented him from
thrusting at the horses when he thought nothing of killing their riders
if he could manage it.

There was a brief respite while the French lancers and heavy cavalry
rode back to the safety of their lines.  Then the thunder of the guns
resumed.  Jason had lost count of the cavalry charges.  It was all one
to him now.  The numbness of fatigue and noise had set in and he did
his job automatically, not thinking about whether he would see the end
of the day or not.  The next charge brought fresh cuirassiers against
them, well mounted on heavy horses, coming at a determined canter
across the slippery field, then leaping the now-demolished hedge.  One
horseman dispatched a whole gun crew, chasing the powder boy around the
cannon twice before skewering him with his bloody sword, then riding
off with a harsh laugh.

Rage boiled inside Jason when he recalled the boy's piteous cries.  He
went to him, but the child's eyes were distant and sinking already.
Jason gave himself a mental slap.  He redistributed his crews so they
could fire to some effect.  They were taking the brunt of D'Erlon's
charges, but the French were falling thickly and Jason cheered with
satisfaction along with his remaining men as the attack was repulsed.

It was almost like a game, the cannonading, then the cavalry charges.
Jason saw him again, the cuirassier with the laugh.  He knew him by his
horse.  Jason moved along the line to meet the man himself.  He would
not let such a slaughter happen again.  Jason ducked a second before
the man's sword would have decapitated him.  To his own surprise Jason
hamstrung the horse and brought it down.  He was not thinking, just
reacting.  He advanced on the man, pinned helpless under the thrashing
beast, and ran him through more than once, more than enough.  The boy
had looked so surprised.  The Frenchman had looked terrified, for he
knew what was coming.  "He should not have laughed," Jason said aloud
as though this were the crime for which the man was executed.  Jason
was shaking as he dispatched the writhing horse.  He had never done
anything so brutal in his whole career and it did not make him feel any
better.  His remaining men looked on him' with something like awe.

He got a grip on himself, enough to give orders.  With hands that shook
more than he liked, he bandaged a wound for a private.  Jason had sat
in on some of the training sessions for surgeons' mates at Woolwich,
not so much out of interest as to make sure those in his troop showed
up and paid attention.  But he had picked up enough to feel competent
to stop bleeding and bandage most wounds, though he preferred not to
deal with fractures.  He wished every soldier could be ordered to carry
a store of lint and help wounded comrades but that was not seen as a
soldier's duty.  What was worse, there were no conveyances to take the
wounded to the rear except the empty munitions wagons going back for
more shot and powder.

The French commenced firing again.  Now the cannon-balls were landing
at their feet.  More than half his gunners were dead or wounded.  He
had lost all but one lieutenant and several sergeants.  It was not just
that he cared about them as soldiers.  They were the closest to friends
that he had.  It was only a matter of time for him.  He thought of his
parents and Era, whom he was not likely to see again.  Oddly enough he
thought of Elizabeth Falcrest, that most perfect, most beautiful of
women, and his sacrifice seemed worthwhile.  She had a name like a
prayer and a face like an angel.  He had fallen in love with her in a
few short hours.  In his tired mind he married her and imagined the
child, Amy, was theirs.  He tried to complete his life and imagine it
had been spent for some good purpose.

An aide-de-camp rode up with an order to reposition the guns.  Jason
had seen the French horse artillery unlimbering within four hundred
yards of their lines, but there wasn't a damn thing he could do about
it.

"Too late, I'm afraid," Jason told him.  "We can't get the teams close
enough to limber the guns and get them out.  But we'll spike them if we
look to be overrun on the next charge."

"Your orders are--"

"Get down!"  Jason shouted as he saw an incoming shell aimed for the
cannon nearest them.  It made a direct hit on the gun, exploding and
throwing pieces of metal and wooden gun carriage in all directions,
impelled by a fiery concussion.  Jason felt as though he had been
struck through the head by a bolt of lightning.  He could neither see
nor hear, only feel the horse slam into him and take him down.  Then
nothing.

Jason woke to searing pain behind his eyes and parched lips that split
when he tried to move his mouth.  He felt numb from the chest down and
thought most of his body must have been blown away, but how then could
he be alive--if he was alive?  He could move both his arms and, feeling
in front of him, he discovered a saddle and that which pinned him, a
very dead horse.  He tried dragging himself out from underneath.  The
ground was still soft from the previous night's rain and, if he had the
strength, he might be able to dig himself out, but the effort cost him
dearly.  The night was so black, yet still the cannonading continued.
What a desperate battle for it not to cease with the day.  Jason did
not call for help.  He could not tell friend from foe and he did not
want the French to find him.  He raised his hands and he could not see
them, nor the flashes from the guns.  He could not see.  As an
afterthought he reached toward his aching head and knocked himself out
when he touched the splinter in his eye.

He woke coughing up phlegm from too many hours with no water.  If only
it had rained like the previous night.  It would have been welcome to
cool his fever and wet his parched lips.  He still did not know if his
back was broken or not.  He could feel his feet distantly, or he
thought he could.  His chances of survival were slim.

"Sir, can't you hear me, sir?"

"Hollis?"  Jason asked of the faint but familiar voice of his
servant.

"Right here, sir."  Jason jumped when a hand touched him, belying
Jason's distant perception of Hollis's voice.  "You sound so far
away."

"Drink this, sir.  We'll have you out in a minute."  "Hollis, did we
win?  It's worth everything if we won."  "That we did, sir.  I would
have come for you sooner, but we lost this ground for a bit.  The horse
that has you pinned probably saved you."

"What happened?  I can't see a thing."

"Looks like the gun blew up, sir."

"What about the rest?  Kerry, Short, the Stoddard boy?  Are they all
right?"

"We am still looking for wounded.  There is some movement by the last
gun in line," Hollis said, reluctant to describe the absolute
desolation around them.  "That's all I seo' '

"It's not night, is it?"  Jason asked ominously.  "It's nearly nine
o'clock, sir," Hollis said gently.  Jason said nothing, just looked
toward the voice of his servant with the one crystal blue eye he could
hold open and nodded.  The horse was dragged off him, none too gently
he thought, but his legs were so numb he scarcely felt it.  The pins
and needles started and he knew he was in for it.  He was trying to
remember how long it would take the circulation to return when someone
came and wrapped a bandage around his eyes.  They touched the splinter
and he fainted.

The incessant groaning was setting his nerves on edge.  He was trying
to sleep and lie as quietly as possible.  He listened with more
awareness and the sound stopped.  He dropped off to sleep again in
spite of the aching in his head, but the groaning reawakened him.
That's when it occurred to him that it was himself he was heating, and
he was embarrassed to think he was so weak.  He had been wounded before
and had taken it rather stoically.  That had been a heroic wound, which
got him a lot of attention and sympathy when he arrived home.  Hollis
had taken care of him then, as well.  Jason was used to being helped to
wash and eat.  He was not used to being completely helpless.  And the
uncertainty about his eyes was gnawing at him.  One was gone.  He was
sure of that.  Why he couldn't see out of the other one he could not
imagine, nor why the left side of his head ached so when the fragments
had hit him on the right side, unless he had slammed into a rock when
he went down.

He tried to raise his head to get a bearing on where he was, but it
felt strangely heavy and the effort set off the lightning bolts behind
his eyes again and a nauseating dizziness.

"Best lie still, sir.  The surgeon will see you directly.  Are you
thirsty?"

"Yes."  He drank deeply from the cup Hollis held for him and coughed.
"Brandy?  You will make me drunk."

"Brandy and water.  Best if you were a bit on the go, sir.

Some of these poor devils have had nothing for the pain."  "Where are
we?"

"The regimental hospital--a barn actually.  They have sent the overflow
on to the general hospital at Brussels."  "That bad?"  "I fear so."

A murmur of protest in the background had been growing into shouts and
finally screams and Jason could imagine it was an amputation or a
splinter coming out.  He hoped he would do better when it was his
turn.

"You said we won?"  Jason asked Hollis, as he did each time he awoke.

"Yes, and it looks to be over for the most part."  "My men.  Are any of
them here?"

"No, not here," Hollis said noncommittally.

To Jason's surprise the surgeon sat by his cot, snipped off the
bandages and pried his right eye open before he had time to brace
himself.  Hollis and someone else held his head and arms.  To Jason it
seemed his eye was being yanked out and he screamed once in spite of
himself.  The surgeon forced his other eye open.  Jason could feel both
of them weeping freely.  "You see nothing?"  the doctor asked
impersonally.

"No," he managed to say through clenched teeth.  "Wait and see."  After
a bit more probing, which was inconsequential now that the fires were
dancing in Jason's head again, the surgeon ordered his mate to stitch
the wounds that ran across his cheek and forehead, but to let the eye
go for now to see if it got infected.  Jason scarcely felt the stitches
and began to hope for some relief from the pain, but it was not to
be.

The pressure in his head grew worse with each passing hour.  With it
came a dizziness that sent him reeling in his imagination through a
groundless battlefield.  The disorientation made him queasy and it took
all his concentration not to heave up the water and brandy.  He could
only be glad he had not eaten all day, if this was the same day.  If so
it had gone on for an eternity already.  He was lucky to have Hollis to
take care of him.  He knew from what Hollis had done in the past that
he was making himself useful with the other wounded, as well.  If he
could do nothing else for them he could bathe them, and that alone
added immensely to one's comfort.

In the delirium that overtook him Jason gave himself up for dead.  His
head seemed to be the crossroads for all the pain in the world, and he
began to fancy he was dead and in hell.  When he came back to a groggy
consciousness he began to fear instead that he would live.  The first
lessening of pressure was such a change he fancied himself on the mend,
except that the world was still as black as night to him when Hollis
changed the dressings over his eyes.  The right eye he could not open
at all.  The nerves and muscles would not work.  He had not been
thinking much beyond trying to die with as much dignity as possible.
When it seemed he would be called upon to live he began to wonder what
use a blind artillery officer would be.  He saw himself living out his
life as his father's pensioner, and then his brother's, with the
faithful Hollis wasting his life taking care of him.  It was not a
future he fancied and not one in which he would have a lot of choices
to make.

He woke up mumbling the names of his men again and Hollis was not there
to tell him who had survived and who had not.  Why could he not
remember such a simple, vital thing?  Surely Hollis had told him this a
dozen times already.  Someone offered him water, but it was not Hollis
and Jason had an unreasonable, childish fear that he would never see
his old friend again.

"Is the fighting still going on?"

"Lord, no, it's been over for two days," a woman's voice answered.  "We
won, of course, but I have never seen the like of these wounded before.
They are still finding men."

"Is your--?"

"My man's lost an arm but not, by luck, his right one.  It's a bloody
business.  I'll be glad when we leave it."

The woman stayed long enough to wash the sweat off his face.  Jason did
not think the stench was from the barn itself, but from the proximity
of too many bodies, human and animal, as yet unburied.  Next would come
the fevers.  "I wish I could do something," Jason mumbled.

"Just lie still, sir.  They will be moving you into Brussels in a day
or two."

Jason thought.  about another night or two listening to the horrific
moaning from the hospital and beyond.  It almost made him wish he had
been completely deafened, as well as blinded.

He had a visit from his second captain, Lyle, who assured him that he
had only sustained a scratch or two but would not part with any
information on casualties unless Jason asked specifically about
someone.

"You're in charge now," Jason said finally, guessing there was not much
of a troop to lead.

It was a few hours later when Hollis made Jason jump again.  "Sorry,
sir, but if you can walk, I can get you on a wagon into Brussels,"
Hollis said, sounding so conspiratorial it prompted Jason to ask if he
had bribed someone.  "No, but they will take the first men who can walk
to the wagons.  We could be in England in a few days."

The excitement in Holus's voice was far from infecting Jason, who
scarcely cared what happened to him, but he supposed he would
eventually have to go home anyway.  It might as well be now.  Hollis
helped him dress and packed their kits.  The wagon trip would have been
bad anyway, considering the slightest movement made Jason dizzy and set
off his headache, but the roads had been cratered by bad weather and
heavy loads.  The movement of the wagon as it lurched from hole to hole
set off alarms of pain behind his eyes and finally Jason begged HOllis
to let him walk.  This wore him out enough to dull the pain.

Hollis did not conduct him to the general hospital in Brussels as Jason
had feared.  The general hospitals, much as they had been improved,
were always hotbeds of fever compared to the small regimental
hospitals.  A man's chances of survival were even greater if he were
billeted in a private house.

Instead there was another wagon.  They were two days on the way to
Antwerp and Jason walked half of it.  It tired him enough to let him
sleep at night.  It would have been necessary for him to walk anyway
when they reached Antwerp.  Hollis had to nearly carry him to the dock,
and had to leave him with their packs to locate a ship.  The constant
movement and noise confused the dizzy Jason and made him wish for
nothing so much as a place to sit down and let his head clear.  Someone
bumped into him and knocked him down.  He could have wept with
frustration.  He thought at that point that the very worst had happened
to him and he had no pride left at all.

"Where is the other pack, sir?"

"Oh, no--stolen, I suppose.  What was in it?"

"All your clothes, sir, and your saber," said Hollis in real despair.
"Perhaps they have loaded it.  I'll look for it."

Jason sighed.  "No matter.  I won't need the uniforms again or the
saber.  And you can lend me a shirt until we get back to High Stand."

"You are right, of course.  This way, sir.  The gangway is very narrow,
sir.  If you hold onto my shoulder, can you follow me up it?"

"I shall try."

Jason lost his balance near the end.  Hollis grabbed one arm and
another strong hand grabbed the other.

"Steady, Captain," a strangely familiar voice said to Jason.  To Hollis
it said, "There is a bunk in the cabin at the bottom of the
companionway.  Can you get him down there?"

"Thanks," said Jason.  "Aren't you Elizabeth's brother?  Falcrest,
isn't it?"

"Yes," said Clive, really not recognizing the bandaged face among so
many others.  Clive's worst nightmares had come true: He had sent all
these men here, healthy and strong.  And he was bringing them back
wrecks, if they came back at all.

"Jason Weir."

"I remember you.  You came to dinner.  You were quite taken with
Elizabeth, as I recall."

"Yes, I'm glad I got to see her.  It's something to think about."

Hollis helped Jason down the ladder as Clive resumed his work.  Jason
had no more braced himself in the bunk than the creaking of the timbers
signaled that they were under way, floating down the inlet to the sea
and eventually to England.  The unsteady motion was already beginning
to operate on Jason's head and he wondered if seasickness was to be
added to his woes.

After a tapping on the door, Clive came in to stow his papers.

"This is your cabin, then," Hollis concluded.

"I prefer to stay on deck anyway.  Sorry I didn't remember you at
first, Weir."

Jason heard a slight movement, guessed that there was a hand to shake
and extended his own.  "You must know so many men by now.  This is
Hollis, who has saved my life again.  He's made a career of it."

"I helped ship everyone over.  The least I can do is see they get back.
I hear it was very bad."

Jason nodded.

"Would you like a cigar?  Here, let me light it for you."

The familiar smoke curling inside his mouth seemed to calm Jason's
queasiness for a time.

It was not a rough crossing.  In truth, Jason thought there was more
pitching going on inside his head than outside, but he could hardly
stand on his feet by the time they made and.  Hollis got him onto the
deck but the most Jason could do was kneel there reeling.

"He will never make it," Hollis said to someone.  "Let me find a
litter."

"It's either that or the cargo net," Clive suggested with a laugh.

"Let's try that," Jason said.  "I hate being carded."  By the time
Hollis returned, Jason was just alighting on the shore and stepping out
of the net, but he still could not stand with any confidence.  Hollis
led him away from the activity of unloading, then went to find
transport for them, leaving Jason sitting on the remaining pack.

"Damn," Clive said beside him, rattling some papers.  "What's the
matter?"  Jason asked automatically.

"Orders--my last it looks like.  Now that the conflict is over I am
relieved of my duties."

"They must be very short of money.  The rest of us will be lucky if we
ever get paid."

"That's not why I wanted in it."

"Me, either," said Jason, "but it gives you something to complain
about."

Clive laughed.  "Where are you off to?"

"London first, in case Father has come to town and opened the house. If
not, back home to High Stand.  It's the other side of Hereford. Where
are you from?"

"Hampshire.  I look after one of my brother's farms there.  But the
family is still in London.  Why don't you ride that far with me?  I
have my carriage here and I would appreciate the company."

"And I would appreciate a ride in anything that doesn't shake my brains
loose."

Actually what Clive was eager for were some firsthand reports of the
battle, and Jason did not feel squeamish about talking to him.  C!I've
didn't need detail.  Having been in battle himself he could imagine the
worst of it.

"I only saw what was going on in our part of the line, but it was hot
enough.  I forget how many charges we took.  We were overrun three
times before I got taken out of it.  I hear there was one more charge
from D'Erion, but that was the end of it.  Oh, I just realized.  The
horse that fell on me must have belonged to the aide-de-camp who was so
impatient with me.  Did you find him, Hollis?"

"Dead, sir."

"How many were left of our troop?"  Jason asked broodingly

"Most of the drivers and the boys tending the horses," Hollis
volunteered.  "Lyle's troop fared better.  Lane was carded off wounded,
but is still alive."

Jason looked toward him sharply at the piece of news that had been
withheld from him.  "If only I had not lost my records I could have
written some letters, I mean, gotten someone to write them.  I shall
have to get the addresses from the War Office."

"They will take care of the notifications for you," Clive said in some
sympathy.  He had written that kind of letter himself and it had never
been easy.

"But their families should know how they stood fast.  None of them ran.
They just kept firing even with the infantry falling all around us.
It's important that they know that."

"Yes, that is important," Clive agreed.

They both fell silent for a time.  Clive's leg wound seemed almost
trivial to him now compared to what had happened to Jason.  C!I've did
not miss the sign from Hollis to change the subject and he asked
suddenly, "You were at Oxford with me, were you not?  It seems an age
ago."

"A year behind.  We didn't know each other then."

"That's because I spent all my time gaming and whoring."

"I can't believe I wasted all my time studying.  It prepared me to be a
gunnery officer but it ill prepared me for Spain."

Clive chuckled.  "I imagine the Spanish women were fascinated by your
golden hair.  Quite an advantage for you."

"And an education.  Don't scowl, Hollis, as I know you are doing.  You
were no saint yourself."

This brought a surprised chuckle from Hollis.  "We are nearly home,
sir.  The house is on Green Street."

"That's only a stone's throw from Portman Square.  We are practically
neighbors."

There was no knocker on the door, and Jason and Clive exchanged
promises to call on each other someday as Hollis made his way around to
the rear.

"Why don't you come back home with me?"  Clive begged.  "You know
Marissa and William would be glad to have you."

Jason did not even consider accepting this offer.  His pride had taken
too many blows of late.  He would not be an object of pity for the
beautiful Elizabeth.  "Thanks, but I think I want my own bed and a long
sleep.  We'll meet again."

Hollis opened the front door himself in a very short space of time. "No
one about, but I got in," he said proudly.

"Good Lord, so we are housebreakers.  Good-bye for now, Clive, and
thank you again."

Elizabeth sat listlessly by the window, thinking back over many
sleepless nights and fruitless days.  The papers gave little news and
less comfort.  Clive came and went as his duties called him.  When she
asked about Jason as casually as she could, he hardly seemed to
remember him and Elizabeth was terrified.  How was she to get in touch
with Jason again?  There was no way to write to him, even if she knew
how to post a letter.  to him.  She did not even know where his home
was.  She might never see him again.

Then there was the problem of Charlie.  He had not written, either, but
he was not much of a letter writer.  The more she thought of Charlie
the more she came to detest him.  Then she would regret this and cry
for him as though he were dead.

Eventually she came to see that she was making herself ill to no
purpose.  She could not communicate with either man.  She could only
wait for one or both of them to contact her.  She hated waiting.  She
wished Clive would return with news from Belgium."  She had waited for
Clive to return from the brutal fighting in Spain and he had come back
to them wounded and half-dead with fever.  Waiting was how she had
spent too many of her twenty-four years and she was weary of it.  She
desperately wanted to make a difference.  The only thing she had to
hang on to was the look in Jason's blue eyes when he promised to be
careful only because she asked it.  It was a foolish thing to say to a
man going off to war but she couldn't say she loved him.

Elizabeth put down her sewing and looked out at the dying day.  It was
warm even for June, but the departing sunlight left her soul a little
chilled.

Suddenly Clive's curricle was there in the square.  He handed the reins
to his groom and got stiffly down.  He had begun to limp tiredly up the
steps when he caught sight of his sister at the window and smiled at
her through his weariness and depression.  She waved to him and went
into the hall to meet him.

Elizabeth thought Clive had lost nearly all the bronze of the Spanish
sun by now, but the lines it had etched around his eyes and mouth gave
him a gaunt, serious look that made him seem old for twenty-eight. Only
Elizabeth, who had nursed him, knew how much he had suffered and why he
found it so hard to be gay.  The boy in him was dead now, or nearly so,
and it had been a hard death.  She had almost rather have back that
provoking, irresponsible

Besieged brother, and yet the man who stood before her was as much
beloved as his younger self.

Elizabeth waited until Clive rid himself of hat and driving gloves. She
could tell his leg ached.  In spite of nearly a year of healing the leg
was stiff and uncooperative, as was C!I've from time to time these
days.

"Any news?"  she asked hesitantly.

"No, none of the men we brought back even knew Charlie.  But I did
bring back Captain Weir.  Do you remember him?  He was--Elizabeth?  Are
you ill?"

"He's alive then!"  she gasped, clutching the hall table.,

"Well, of course he's alive.  Blinded though, poor fellow."

Elizabeth stared sightlessly across at her brother for a full minute.

"Elizabeth, I'm sorry.  I shouldn't have blurted it out like that."

"I'm fine," she whispered, leaning on the arm Clive offered her. "Where
is he staying?"

"His father's house in Green Street."

"I'll call tomorrow," she said as she started up the stairs with him.

"You can't.  The family's not in residence.  Jason is just staying
there till his father comes for him."

"Alone?"

"No, of course I wouldn't leave him there alone.  He has his man with
him.  I tried to talk him into staying here but he wouldn't."

"You mean to go and see him, don't you?"  "Yes, of course.  I haven't
much else to do now."  "I'll go with you."

Clive was about to spurn this suggestion as improper, also, but
something in Elizabeth's pleading look fores tailed him and he merely
nodded.  She was taking each death of a man they knew much harder than
he was, but she had never reacted like this before.

* *

The splashing of water woke Jason.  It had not been a restful sleep but
one of those nights full of dizzy flights across fields of bodies and
blood.  When had his dreams become so colorful?  It had begun to prey
on his mind that nearly his entire command had been wiped out.  Perhaps
he should have anticipated an order to draw back before the situation
became desperate.  But the fighting had been desperate all day.  And
the withdrawal of his guns would have opened a hole that the French
could have poured through.  No, he had been right to stand.  If he
stopped believing that, he was lost.

"How about a nice hot bath, sir?"

"I must have died and gone to heaven after all."

It was not until Hollis had scrubbed him, washed his hair and shaved
him that he realized what a sight he must have been before.  It made
him doubly glad he had not gone to stay with the Falcrests.  Hollis
made him get back into bed in one of his own nightshirts and went out
to purchase food.  It was an odd sensation, Hollis out foraging in
London as he would have in a foreign city.  He came back and cooked
them both a breakfast of eggs and toast and tea.  They ate together in
Jason's bedroom.  Jason could manage simple food himself so long as
Hollis told him what it was and gave it to him in a tin pan with
sides.

"I've written to your father again."

"Have you told him I can't see?"

"I thought I had better mention it so it wouldn't be such a shock for
them."

"Just what I was thinking.  Nothing to do but wait then, I suppose."

"Go back to sleep.  It's the best thing for you."

"Jason, are you awake?"  Elizabeth asked softly as she went through the
open door of his room and set a towel-wrapped pot on the small table by
the bed.  She could see the ends of scars under the bandages but that
didn't matter.

All that mattered was that Jason was still alive.  She didn't care what
he looked like.

"Jason?"

"Era?"  he asked groggily, turning his head on the pillow.  "Is Father
here then?"

"No, it's Elizabeth."

"Elizabeth?  But you shouldn't be here."  He turned his head slowly
from side to side.

"Nonsense.  I've brought you some soup.  I can just imagine what your
man has been feeding you.  Probably eggs and ham or some such thing."

"How did you guess?"  Jason asked, trying to get his bearings and make
sure he was covered.  "You made me soup?"  '

"Well, not me personally, but I ordered it made."  "That was kind of
you.  If you pour it into a cup I may be able to drink it."  He
struggled to sit up and leaned dizzily against the high wooden
bedstead.

"I can feed it to you," she offered.

"Not for a while, I'm afraid.  I get so dizzy when I first wake up it
makes me queasy.  Where is Hollis?"

"Talking to Clive.  We want you to come stay with us in Portman
Square."

"I think it might be quieter here," Jason said, terrified now that they
would have him carted off to Elizabeth's home where she would see him
every day, and he would never be able to see her.  That was the most
bitter thing about being blind.  But at least he had seen her once. 
"We could take better care of you."

"No doubt, but think of poor Hollis.  Besides, Father is probably on
his way here now ... and, at least, I know the layout of this room.  I
go on much better here, believe me."

Elizabeth knew these were all excuses, but not why he was giving them.
Perhaps he did not really care for her as much as she cared for him.
"I'm ... I'm so glad you came back.  But I do wish you had been more
careful."  She was unsuccessful in keeping the tears out of her
voice.

"We were none of us very careful that day.  But it does not matter now.
I never thanked you for that last night with your family.  It gave me
something like I have at home, something to hang on to.  I knew that no
matter what happened to me, you would all be safe, would go on living.
And we won."

"Yes, I know," Elizabeth said, remembering a similar speech by another
man who only wanted something to hang on to.  She believed in her heart
that Charlie was dead.  She had the chilling feeling that Charlie's
death and Jason's blindness were somehow her fault, some sort of
punishment for betraying Charlie.  But God did not play those kinds of
tricks.  It might have happened even if she were not engaged to Charlie
and even if she had never met Jason.

There were footfalls on the stairs.  "You are looking much better,"
Clive's voice said from the doorway.  Are you sure you won't come and
stay with us?"

"Thank you for the offer but we go on very well here."  "We'd best go
then and let you get some rest."  "We'll call again
tomorrow,"-Elizabeth promised.

Jason drank Elizabeth's soup then in silence, but when he had finished,
he said, "Hollis, I have to go home."

"I tried to stop her, but she nipped up the stairs before I could say
aught."

"I can't be here tomorrow."

"Your father can't have gotten the letter I sent yesterday.  If I post
another one now, he will get it before he sets out.  The only thing
is--to be honest we are a little short of funds and I don't know anyone
I could borrow from."  "Too bad we lost what was in my pack."  "I
suppose I could ask Captain Falcrest..."

"No good!  Then he would try to stop us.  Do you think you have enough
to get us home?"

"I think we should rest here until early tomorrow morning.  Then it's
just a question of the mail coach or the stage.

The expense will be about the same since we won't need lodgings if we
take the mail, but..."

"Yes, will my head stand twelve or fourteen hours of wrenching and
swaying?  I don't know."

"Then I suggest the stage.  We will be two days on the road."

"What day is it?"

"Wednesday.  If we leave tomorrow we should arrive Friday.  Best get as
much sleep as you can until then."

"Elizabeth," Clive said, looking up from a note he had just opened at
the breakfast table.

"Yes," she replied.

"It's a note from Hollis, Jason's man.  Jason must be feeling much
better.  They have decided to go home rather than wait in London for
Lord Weir."

"But he can't.  He isn't well enough."

"How would you know?"  Victoria asked suspiciously.  "By what Clive
says, that he can hardly stand from the dizziness," Elizabeth said,
looking beseechingly at her brother.

"I'm sure Hollis will know how to take care of him.  He's been with
Jason for years."

"Where is it that Jason lives?"  Elizabeth asked as casually as she
could.

"A place called High Stand, near Hereford," Clive replied.  He secretly
believed it was Elizabeth's attempt at nursing that had driven Jason
from town.  There was a time when he would have been stupid enough to
say so.  But he had learned some wisdom during his long convalescence:
that it took more than good doctoring to get a man well again.  It took
a deal of courage, not of the valiant sort you had in battle, but of
the patient, enduring sort.  Where Elizabeth came by it he did not
know, but she had kept him from blowing his brains out more than once,
and he would never say anything to hurt her.

Her attachment for Jason he did not quite comprehend.

She may have fastened on him since he was the last soldier she saw off
and the first of the wounded she had encountered.  He would have
thought she would have been more upset about Charlie Cairnbrooke from
whom there had been no word.  He was more than a little worded
himself.

As it turned out, even the swaying of the stage, although it stopped
frequently, threw Jason into a dizzy fever after one day.  Hollis
called a halt and rested an extra day at Cheltenham.  They had only
enough money then to carry them to Hereford and get them a bed in the
cheapest of the inns there.  Home was another twelve miles after that.
Hollis didn't like leaving Jason with no breakfast but he saw no choice
but to walk to High Stand for help.

"No, I will walk with you as far as I can go.  Then you can leave me. I
have marched farther than that and it may be the very thing to clear my
head."  Since Jason was already flushed with the effort of getting
dressed Hollis did not see how this could be so.

Jason rested his hand on Hollis's shoulder and Hollis faithfully warned
him of ruts and holes in the road.  Jason could hear out of his left
ear so he knew when coaches were approaching, but the direction
confused him.  They rested where they found fresh water and by
midafternoon were coming to the last hill, seemingly without doing
Jason any damage.  Else he was putting on a brave front.

"Hollis, listen.  The church bells from Bishopstone.  Is it Sunday
then?"

"Yes, but they are tolling a death."

"I keep getting the most awful feeling about home--that all is not
safe.  Let's push on."

When they finally set foot on the Weir lands again, Hollis looked up at
the block like house where he had served since Jason was a child.  High
Stand's four stories looked even more imposing by being perched on top
of a hi!!.  Had it not been for its century-old oaks and untidy gardens
to

Besieged soften its transition to the landscape, the red brick edifice
would have looked stark and brooding.

They came up the switchback road to the front door, but as in London,
no one answered the knock.  "Let's go around back," Jason suggested.
"Four steps off here, right?"

"How did you know that, sir?"

"You forget my early interest in mathematics.  I used to count
everything when I was little, including all the stair steps.  Now it
will come in handy."

The kitchen door was standing open and Jason heard the cook and a
kitchen maid talking.  Something hit the floor with a crash.  "Mr.
Jason!  We thought you was dead."

"Why would you think that, Mrs.  Bridges?  Is no one home?"

"Your mother is in her room and Miss Emily is in the morning room. Best
not go to your mother.  The shock would be too much for her."

"Is she very ill?  I had best see Em first then."

Hollis led him to the morning room and threw the door open.

Jason heard someone leave off crying and then silence for a moment.
"Who are you?"  Emily asked in a frightened voice.

"Have I changed so much then?"

"Jason!  Oh, Jason!"  she cried as she ran into his arms.  "We thought
you were dead for certain."

"But why?"  he asked, feeling her wet cheeks.

"Didn't they get any of my letters, miss?"  Hollis asked as he steered
Jason to a chair and told him to sit.

"We got one from Belgium, but David Hume came back from London with
news.  He said your whole brigade was wiped out.  He said there was no
one left alive on that ridge."

"I will wring his neck for scaring you!"  Jason vowed.  "But I've
written twice since, miss."

"Oh, I suppose no one has gone into Hereford to collect the post with
Mother so ill and you being dead--I mean--" "Where is everyone?"  Jason
asked impatiently.

"At church--Oh, dear--it's your funeral," Emily gasped, and stepped
back from him, fearing how Jason would receive this.  "Well, just a
memorial service really since we had no body---oh, dear," she said
uncertainly from somewhere just above his head.

Jason vacillated for a moment, but his sense of the ridiculous won and
he began to chuckle.  This made Em giggle a little hysterically.  When
Jason was more sober, he asked, "How can we tell Mother without
shocking her too much?"

"I will do it if she is awake.  Wait in the hall for me to call you."

As it turned out, Lady Helen was asleep, and Hollis suggested Jason
should do the same.  For the first time, Em took in Jason's bandages,
his ragged uniform, and the fever that flushed his face.  She, too,
insisted he go to bed.  Jason was tired and he thought he had a right
to expect some relief, but the dizzying sway of the coach followed him
into his dreams and the spinning became so violent that he fell out of
bed in his efforts to escape it.

"Hollis, where are we?"  he asked desperately, unable to untangle
reality from dream.

"High Stand.  We are home, sir.  You just fell out of bed."

"The thing was moving.  I could swear it."  "Yes, sir.  Perhaps you
were dreaming."  "I must have been."

"Is your head still spinning?"

"Yes.  Is there anything left to smoke?  That usually helps."

"Nothing, I'm afraid, until I can get into the village."  They heard
excited voices below, interspersed with the butler's somber assurances,
then remarks of surprise and anger at the false alarm as Jason's father
and brother ascended the stairs.  This took the edge off their
reaction, so Jason could not tell, when they came to his room to find
him crawling back into bed, if they were really glad to see him or not.
His father spoke only of what the ordeal had been like for Lady Helen.
Alton rambled on about the will of God, making less sense than usual to
his exhausted brother.  Jason drifted off to sleep again in the middle
of Alton's speech, thinking that if it had not been for Em it would
hardly have been worth the trip home.

Chapter Three

Jason sat at the open window of his room.  It was a floor lower than
his schoolroom perch but it still had' an Olympian command of fields
and woods.  At least, that is how Jason remembered it.  He did not
think it could be a sunny day, for there was no warmth on his face and
the sounds were wrong.  The lowing of the cattle was an early-morning
sound and the rest of the world overlooked by High Stand was subdued,
as though everyone were busy about work.  For a moment Jason wondered
if he had slept on through the night and it was morning.  Falling
asleep in the middle of the day disoriented him.  Usually he simply
came to his room to wrestle with his headache and to get himself into
frame for another trying meal, but he had fallen asleep today and now
he had no idea what time it was.  Why this should disturb him so when
he had nothing to do and no appointments to keep he could not
understand.

A sharp tapping at his door promised a welcome break.  "Come in, Em."

"How did you know it was me?"  Em asked excitedly as she whisked into
the room with the aroma of fresh-cut flowers clinging about her.

"No one else knocks quite like that.  What have you got for me today?
Roses, I can tell from here."  "Roses are easy.  Guess what this one
is.  No fair touching

it," she said, smacking his hand.  "You have to guess by the smell."

"This is different, almost a vanilla smell.  Let me think."  He scanned
his memory of the gardens his mother had planted and tended so
industriously when she had been young.  "It's the blue one, I think.
The one that's all spilling out of itself like a cockaded hat."

"That's fight.  It's an iris.  Now do this one."

"That's the one you fooled me with yesterday--the peony.  It's almost
like a rose, but there is some faint differ-cnce.  Am I right?"

"Yes, one more."

"But this one has no scent."  He grabbed Em's hand then and felt the
flower.  "An ordinary daisy."

"No flower is ordinary," she said as she conveniently disposed of
yesterday's bouquet out the window and put the new one in its place.

It was the same game she had played with him for three days, but Jason
found it neither pathetic nor artificial, coming as it did from Em's
young heart.

"What are you wearing today?  You are brushing on the floor."

"My riding habit."

"The green one?"

"Yes, but how on earth did you guess that?"

"So it is still today then.  You wore the blue one yesterday.  You are
my only timepiece, Em."

"I wanted to ride, but Father and Alton rode over to Hungerstone."
Jason could almost hear Em pout.  "They sent Gordon to the village on
an errand.  Hollis went with him."

"Probably to get me something to smoke."

"That's why I can't ride.  There's no one to go with me."  "I wish I
could."

"How are you feeling, Jason?"  "Better every day, thanks to you, Em."
"Is your head aching?"

"Not at the moment.  You are not going to tell me something that will
change that?"  Jason asked suspiciously.

"So, other than not being able to see, there's nothing much wrong with
you."

"No, actually not."  Jason grinned at Em's dismissal of his blindness,
concussion and impaired hearing in such a summary fashion, but she had
always been a brutal chit.  "Come tiding with me, then."

"I already tried that yesterday.  I can't get even Hollis to saddle a
horse for me.  I'm sure no one else will."

"I will do it.  With no one about we can easily make off with a couple
of horses."

"Won't you be in trouble with Father?"

"Oh yes, but I'm used to it.  Alton says I will bring him down in
sorrow to his grave with my exploits.  Is that from the Bible?"

"I'm not sure."  Jason wanted a fide desperately, even if he could not
see, and Emily was not pitying him.  She was trying to use him to get
something for herself in her usual wheedling way.  He liked her for
that.  And he didn't care if she was spoiled.  She was the only sister
he had.

"It will be like being prisoners of the French and planning an escape,"
Em plotted excitedly.  "Did you ever have to do anything like that?"

"Nothing nearly so dating, but I am game if you are.  The only thing is
you have to be lookout."

Emily opened the door to his room.  "No one about.  Let's do it," she
whispered, and came back and took his hand.

They made their way down the stairs and had nearly got to the back door
when someone came out of the but let pantry, clearing his throat and
making Jason start guiltily.

"I wish you would not sneak up on me.  Is that you, Greves?"

"Yes, sir."  The stout retainer took the reproof stoically.

"Em and I are going for a short walk.  We would like some lemonade in
the garden in half an hour."

"Yes, of course, sir."

Ilesteged

"Why did you ask for lemonade?  We don't want any.  You are not fun
king on me, are you?"

"No such thing, and where did you hear that expression?"

"From you," Em said innocently.

"Oh, we!!.  Don't use it again.  The lemonade gives us half an hour
with no one looking for us.  And please don't be sneaking along like I
suppose you to be.  Walk quite normally.  We didn't say we were not
going to the stables, did we?"

"This is so exciting," Em whispered.  "You really are quite good at
this."  Emily thrust her arm through his and walked beside him as
tamely as her bounding spirits would permit.

"There's no one even here," she said as they walked into the stable.
Jason's feet echoed on the plank floor and the whole building smelled
sweetly of hay.  He could hear this being munched in three or four
stalls and the mildly interested movement of several horses stretching
to lean over their doors and see who was coming.

"If you hand me the tack I can probably manage it.  What have you in
the way of horses?"

"Weaver, that's Tilden's half brother.  He's five and I have ridden him
before.  Also old Hammer.  You remember him?"

"I have done this in my sleep so often it's not all that hard," Jason
said as he slipped the bit into Hammer's mouth and pulled the headstall
up over his ears.  "Who will want to lead?"

"Hammer.  He knows the trails best."

"Give me your saddle for him, then."  Jason positioned the pad and
saddle by instinct and tightened the girth, testing with his fingers
inside the band to make sure Em would not slip off.  The rich smell of
oiled leather was almost intoxicating.

"Here's Weaver, now."  Emily led another horse up to him, which snorted
with attention.  "He's a tall one," Jason said, slipping the bit into a
beautifully soft mouth and reaching high to get the headstall over the
ears.  Jason ran his hands all over the horse's muzzle, letting it get
a good whiff of him, then breathed into its nostrils.

"What are you doing?"

"Just getting acquainted.  Have I got this bridle on straight?"

"Yes, here's a saddle."

Jason tightened the girth slowly on the strange horse, scratching his
mane reassuringly.  "All set," Jason said as he checked the length of
the stirrups.  "Take one last look outside."

"No one about.  Can you help me up?"  Em whispered.

Jason performed this service, beginning to feel not so helpless after
all.

"You better mount outside," Em cautioned.  "I don't know if you will
clear the door on Weaver."

"Any jumps, give me a word of warning to let me know how we'll land,"
Jason said as he led Weaver out and mounted.

"I will try my best to watch for limbs, too.  Hammer, walk on."

Emily made for the closest woods and let Hammer break into a trot in
her haste to get them under cover.  Jason had no trouble staying on. He
decided to ride with a rather slack rein since he would only use it if
he heard Em pull up.  Weaver would probably slow or stop then anyway.

"We'll walk here, for there are some small limbs."  Good as her word,
Emily always remembered to say

"duck" when there was anything Jason might run into.  "We are coming to
the stream, are we not?"  "How did you know?"  she asked.

"I can still hear pretty well out of my left ear.  What time of day is
it anyway?  I can hear doves."

"Late afternoon, but it's been cloudy all day.  It's one of these days
that stays morning all day.  I like it that way.  Morning is my
favorite time."

Besieged

"When I fall asleep during the day, I lose all track of time.  That
sounds like a squirrel hopping around in the leaves."

"I can't see him.  Oh, yes, there he is going up that tree."  "Are we
almost to the crossing yet?"

"Not yet.  You are expecting things too soon."

"As I remember, the ground rises on the other side.  Which way are we
least likely to meet anyone?"  Jason asked as their horses' feet
splashed through the trickle of water.

"Up through the hay fields.  All the cutting has been done on that
hi!!.  Then we can ride through the Great Woods and have a canter down
Pitch Lane if you like."

"Sounds good to me.  Tell me when we get to the gate.  It's easier for
me to get off."

"Can you manage the catch?"

"I have worked it in the dead of night and not even sober."

"When was that?"

"Never mind."

Jason popped the latch, led Weaver through and waited for Em before he
refastened the catch and remounted.  "When we get to the hedge, give me
a word of warning and jump it square on.  The ground will be rising
there.  I should be able to manage it."

Jason heard the hay stubble crunching under the horses' feet and
smelled the redolent haymows left behind.  He drank it in with a heavy
sigh.

"You want to canter here?"  Em asked.

"As long as there are no holes."

They both shook their horses up and Jason realized how much he had
missed riding.  He had not gotten to ride at all when he came back from
Spain the previous year with his shoulder torn apart.  By the time he
was healed he was called back to duty at Woolwich.  If only that
madman, Napoleon, had stayed put he would still be in one piece.  So
would thousands of others.

With a horse rocking rhythmically under him he felt whole, for Weaver
had a perfectly good pair of eyes.  If only the horse could judge jumps
for himself they would be fine.

"Twenty yards to fence," Em snapped.

Jason felt Weaver's muscles bunch under him and gripped the powerful
beast with his thighs.  They cleared the fence and landed raggedly on
the other side.  "Well, I

stayed on," Jason apologized.

"I didn't say anything."

"No, but I could tell you were smiling."

"Are you sure you can't see?"  Em teased.

"Yes, I just know you too well.  Are we under the oaks now?"

"You have a good memory."

"I could hear the leaves underfoot and when the birds sing there is an
echo."

"You are right!  I can hear it, too."  They moved on in silence for a
while, except for the forest sounds.  Something flushed a clutch of
grouse off to their right.  Jason could picture a fox making a meal of
one of his father's precious birds.

The ride brought back memories of other stolen walks and rides from
Jason's boyhood.  Emily was ten years younger than he, and Jason four
years behind Alton, so neither had been included in Alton and
Geoffrey's expeditions.  Jason had often taken Em with him fishing or
tramping the woods even if she grew so tired he had to carry her home.
They had been very much Lady Helen's children, kept close by her while
the older boys were off riding and hunting with Lord Weir.  Jason now
realized how much he had missed Em.  He had, in fact, seen very little
of her for the past eight years while he was at school and then in the
army.  She had grown into a lively girl just on the verge of womanhood.
But she was still the same imp he remembered who ran to see what he
brought for her tie sieged when he came home on holiday.  This time
there had been no presents.

"We are about to slide down the hill to the lane," Em warned.  "It's
steep, if you remember.  Should we dismount?"

"No, let's try it."  Jason gave Weaver his head and the horse picked
its way carefully down through the rocks and fallen limbs.  When they
hit the solid footing of the lane he turned the horse right and urged
it to a canter.  Emily drew up beside him, laughing.  He could tell the
change in sound when they galloped out from under the tree cover.  "How
far to the road?"  he shouted.

"Two hundred yards."

"We could have used you in the artillery."

Jason slowed Weaver and patted his neck when he thought they were
almost to the road.  Emily reined in beside him and said, "All clear."
They turned right again for the final leg of their journey home.

"Shall we just ride right to the house?"  she whispered.  "Yes, we got
away with it, didn't we?  Now we want to advertise it so Father
realizes I can still ride.  You are not afraid of him, are you?"

"No, but sneaking off was so exciting I thought we might do it that way
every time."  "You are incorrigible."  "Yes, I know."

The sight of Lord Weir and Alton cantering purposefully down the drive
wiped the smile from Emily's face.

"Who is it?"  Jason asked as the sound of other hooves reached his
ears.

"Father and Alton," Em said in horror.

"Where is your courage now?  Don't worry.  I will take the blame.  They
can't do anything to me.  Good morning.  Fine day for a ride--oh,
that's right.  It's afternoon."

"What the devil do you mean by this?  You could have been killed,"
Alton exploded.

"That's enough," Lord Weir barked.  "Are you all right, Jason?"

"Perfectly, and it was a marvelous ride.  I didn't think I should try
it without dragooning a guide, of course, so don't blame Emily.  I was
so desperate for a ride, I would have paid a kitchen maid to go with
me."

"What if you had fallen?"  Alton expostulated.

"I have fallen before without taking any harm.  Besides, Emily told me
how far everything was.  She has a very good eye for distance."

"Emily, if I thought you put him up to this, I would have some words to
say to you," Lord Weir warned.  "As for you, I thought I gave orders
you were not to take a horse out."

"Did you?"  Jason asked with an innocence that outdid Em's.  "I didn't
hear of it.  I like this horse very much.  He's a careful goer for
being so young."

"Don't try to distract me.  You are as bad as your sister when it comes
to getting your own way."

Jason could detect a softening in his father's voice.  "But I suppose
if Emily is willing to go with you, and you don't try to jump anything;
you can ride Weaver.  He's a bit slow and mincing for my taste."

"He's perfect for me.  He never sets his feet wrong.  And he took the
hedge without giving it a second thought."

"You didn't fall?"  Alton chimed in, as Lord Weir looked in
astonishment at Jason.

"No, I didn't fall."

"Well, I hope you won't tell Mother what you have been about.  Her
nerves are in a bad way as it is."

"Yes, I didn't think of that."  Jason rode home at a sedate trot with a
subdued Em beside him.

Alton continued to grumble reproofs at Jason but Lord Weir secretly
smiled at his younger son's audacity.  He could remember the first time
Jason had ridden a horse rather than his pony.  He had told Jason he
could not ride with them until he was tall enough to bridle and saddle
a horse for himself.  Jason must have been eight at the time.  He stood
on a barrel to tack up old Carlton with an expertise that could only
have been gotten from long and secret practice.  They had all laughed
at him as he struggled onto the tall horse, but Jason did not care so
long as he got to ride with them.  Carlton was a hard mouthed brute no
one else liked, but the beast listened to the small boy on his back and
made no effort to dump the light load.  Lord Weir had been secretly
proud of Jason that day.  This day matched it in his estimation.

Once Jason had dismounted and handed Weaver over to the groom with a
word to brush him down well, he felt suddenly lost, as he had so often
in the past two weeks.  He had to stand still and wait for someone to
lead him back to the house.  His brief taste of freedom made the
reality of his blindness all that much more depressing.  Emily took his
arm and was careful to allow him enough space.  "That's one of the best
rides I have ever had," she said.  "I heard things I never heard
before."

Em went to her room and took out the letter she had received from
Elizabeth Falcrest and read it over for the tenth time.

Dear Miss Weir,

My brother Clive Falcrest was in the army with your brother Jason.  We
met Jason on his way through London and wondered how he is doing.  But
since Clive is no letter writer, I am writing myself.  And since it is
not a question one can easily ask a man, I thought I would write to you
instead.  Jason talked of his sister Em so much I feel I know you
already.

The other matter that prompts me to write has less to do with Jason's
health than his spirits.  I wanted to warn you that you may have a
difficult task ahead of you.  When my brother came back wounded from
Spain there was no one to advise me.  I had to grope my way day by day.
You cannot push such men, not too quickly anyway.  One inch a day is
all the ground you can gain sometimes and you may lose a week's
progress n a moment.  But never give up or lose patience with him no
matter what awful things he may say to you.  He will come back to
himself, just as Clive did.  You have only to keep at him.

Above all, make him laugh if you can and keep him busy, even if you do
it by worrying him.  Don't let him sit and brood.  And don't let him
feel sorry for himself.  You and Jason have a road to walk that Clive
and I have already trod.  I thank God he has someone to help him.  You
must write to me and tell me his progress, and his setbacks.  I will be
whatever help I can.

Sincerely, Elizabeth Falcrest

Thereafter Emily kept Jason amused by riding or walking with him when
the weather was fair or reading to him when it was not.  She did write
to Elizabeth and related the many ways she kept Jason busy or bothered.
She also begged Elizabeth to write Jason.  If it did not cheer him up,
she reasoned, such a letter would at least bother him.

Jason spent an hour each morning with his mother, but only in the
presence of Em or the paid nurse.  He was careful not to disclose to
his mother what he and Em had been doing and he vowed to be careful on
his rides.  It would do his mother no good to know he rode blind.

The precise nature of her illness no one could disclose to him, but he
did not think it could merely be a hysterical collapse brought on by
Geoffrey's untimely death or his own wounds.  He had to admit that he
was disappointed she did not seem more glad that he had survived his
ordeal.  It seemed as though his problem was only part of her pain.

She sounded physically weak, not her usual quarrelsome self.  Jason
made a careful and strained effort to stay on safe topics, but it was
clear to him that he often left his mother more fretful than when he
came to her, as though she had no real happiness in life, or some
hidden grief that ate away at all other pleasure.

The old doctor who attended Lady Helen checked Jason's eyes but held
out no hope that he would regain his sight even in the uninjured left
eye.  Jason had been telling himself the same thing for some time now,
but hearing someone else say it affected him more than he expected.
There was such a finality to it.  After the battle he had run into so
many soldiers who had lost arms and legs, some both, that he had begun
to think he had gotten off lightly.  It was only when he thought of the
future that he couldn't bear it.  At twenty-seven he felt completely
useless.  He was not even a good companion for his mother.

"I have a surprise for you," Em said as she led Jason out to the
garden.

"What is it?  A new flower?"  he asked as she pushed him down onto a
warm bench.

"No, a letter.  I thought I would read it to you."  "Who is it from?
The War Office?"

"No, it looks like a woman's hand.  You don't suppose it is a love
letter do you?"

"Give me that, Em."  She snapped it away, and even by groping his way
up both her arms he could not get hold of it for she dropped it onto
the grass.

"Stop playing games, Em," Jason said angrily, moving back to his side
of the bench.

"Would you rather Hollis read it to you?"

"No, of course not."

"There's always Father, I suppose."

Jason looked at her in horror.

"You have to trust me.  You have no one else."

"Oh, go ahead and read it then," Jason agreed when he realized the
truth of Em's statement.

Dar Jason,

Clive was rather vague about where you live, so I hope this finds its
way to you.  I trust you are recovering and mean to come back to London
for the peace celebrations.  I recall you said your mother was ill and
Emily would miss her come out.  Marissa has said you must send her to
us.  She and Mother and I will take care of her.  You must come, too,
of course.  You can both stay with us.  Marissa is writing to Lady Weir
but I wanted to add my invitation, as well.

Please come, Elizabeth Falcrest

"You have made an impression," Em said.  "If I mistake not, this is a
tearstain on the edge of the paper."

"Give me that," Jason commanded, and did manage to wrest the letter
from her this time.

"What good will it do you?  You can't read it."

"I know," he said bitterly, folding it and putting it carefully into
his pocket.

"I'm sorry," Em said as she hugged him.  "I didn't mean to tease you.
You must answer her, you know."

"I can't."

"I'll write for you."

"Not a chance.  I can about guess what you would add."

"You can trust me."

"It doesn't matter.  The answer would be no."

"How can you lose me such an opportunity?"

"Em, I can't," he said desperately.  "Don't ask it of

Em remembered Elizabeth's advice about not pushing him.  "When you're
ready I'll write the letter for You."  She abandoned him in the garden.
He was trying to convince himself to fall asleep, but he slept so much
he resented having nothing else to do when he was actually feeling
well.  He was just thinking about counting his way back to the house
when he heard determined footsteps and his father's voice ask, "What
are you doing here all alone?"

"Nothing.  What could I be doing?"  "Ride over to the high fields with
me."  "Fine."

Jason's father continued to talk to him, so Jason had no trouble
following hiTM to the stable, but he did not pamper Jason to the extent
of taking his arm.  He merely said, "Mind the doorframe," when Jason
was about to walk into it.  Jason was rather surprised that his father
took his blindness so cavalierly, as though it did not really matter,
but he liked him for it.  No one else treated him so offhandedly, but
it was the way Lord Weir had always treated him.

Jason could remember other rides with his father and brothers.  If he
had the misfortune to get tossed off in an open field with no handy
stump or fence to help him mount, his father merely stared at him until
he managed to scramble back on while Geoffrey grinned and Alton frowned
in sympathy.  In truth it was only Alton's sympathy that Jason had
resented.  His father merely watched Jason patiently then rode off
without comment as Geoffrey laughed at his little brother.  God, he
missed Geoff.

They encountered Mr.  Mapes, the agent, out checking the new-mown hay.
Jason thought there was nothing that smelled so sweet or rich as
fresh-cut hay.  It was a promise.  of plenty and security against the
winter, a promise that was kept each time you smelled the summer
fragrance of it as it was tossed to the horses.  Jason dismounted, took
up a handful and wound it into a twist to test it for moisture.

"This field was cut Monday and raked yesterday.  The morning dew is
almost off it by now," Mapes said.

"Have the men start building the haymow after lunch."  "Bit damp yet,
is it not?"  Jason asked.  "You think so?"  his father challenged.

"If it is all like this."  Jason crushed a wad in his hand and it did
not spring back to his satisfaction.

"You may be right," Mapes allowed.  "It will be drier' farther up the
hill."

"They can start at the top then and work their way down," Lord Weir
decided.

"Right," Mapes agreed.

"Where to now?"  Jason asked as he heard his father remount.

"Hereford.  There is some shopping I want to take care of."

"Perhaps you could drop me off at home."

"Pressing engagement?"

"You know I have none," Jason said resentfully.  "Why can't you just
take me as far as the drive?  Weaver will find his way from there."

"Because, ninny, the shopping is for you.  Bad as you looked in that
ragged uniform and borrowed shirt, you look worse still in your suits
from before the war.  They hang on you like rags on a beggar."

Jason shrugged.  "They are comfortable."

"They are a disgrace, not to mention being completely out of fashion.
And since cook's efforts to fatten you up have failed we must get you a
new wardrobe."

"Why do I have to go there?  Can't we just order the blasted things?"

"The same reason I won't let you take your meals in your room.  May as
well face everyone now.  Nothing is made easier by not doing it.  You
used to know that."

This pulled a laugh from Jason.  "You never let me get away with
anything," he complained.

"Damn right.  Come along then."

Jason was not sure himself why he was so reluctant to leave High Stand.
Certainly he had already encountered the worst embarrassment he could
by being knocked down and robbed of his baggage on the quay in Antwerp.
He felt safe at High Stand.  He was to the point that if he was
abandoned anywhere on the estate he could probably feel his way back
home just from the sounds.  It was not his safety that he cared about,
it was the feeling of helplessness that he could not stand.  He had
been a responsible commander.  A him dred and eighty men had looked to
him for their orders, had trusted him to make the right decisions.  Now
they were nearly all dead or wounded and he felt thankful if he did not
knock over his wineglass at dinner.

"Alton would never have been able to tell."  Lord Weir interrupted
Jason's thoughts with an observation that made no sense to him.

"What?"

"About the hay.  He just doesn't have a feel for these things.  He
would just as soon go back to living at Bletchley.  We always planned
for him to be rector there when old Masely retired.  It's what he was
educated for."

"He has lived all his life at High Stand.  He must have picked up
something of farming.  How hard can it be for him to learn it?  He has
mastered more difficult things."

"He does not even try.  He never pays attention to what I am telling
him.  He's only worried about the people.  I cannot bring him to a love
of the land.  Geoffrey had it.  So do you.  Alton cannot understand
that if the land fails it cannot support the people he is struggling to
help."  "Then I hope you live a long time."  "What makes you say
that?"

"Why, the love I bear you, of course."  Jason grinned at his father and
heard the older man snort his derision.

"Seriously," said Jason, wiping the smile from his face.  "I will not
be able to stay here when you are gone.  You do know that."

"Why not?"  his father growled.  "This is your home.;'

"I cannot bear the way Alton treats me.  He brings it up fresh in my
mind every time he talks to me."

"I will speak to him.  He sometimes depresses your mother, too."

"Alton could depress anyone."

"It has all been very hard on her.  First Geoffrey's death, then yours,
or so we thought."

"There's more to it than that," Jason said, shaking his head.  "I don't
believe she has made herself sick over me.

If that were the case she would be getting better now.  And she's
not--not really."

"I should never have sent you into the army.  She begged me not to."

"But what would I have done?"

"There was work enough for you here.  Thinking you were lost this last
time was very nearly the end of her."

"I'm glad then that Hollis brought me home as quickly as he did."

"Perhaps if I had let Geoffrey go instead, everything would have been
different."

"Perhaps he would have been killed years sooner.  You know how careless
he was."

"I so seldom turn maudlin like this," Lord Weir said, clearing his
throat.

"I will warn you if I catch it happening again."  Jason tapped his
horse and cantered off laughing, without the vaguest notion where he
was going but trusting to Weaver's judgment.

"You'll what?  You devil!"  his father gasped as he kicked his horse to
urge it ahead of Jason's.

Jason generally felt good through the morning after the initial
dizziness of getting up.  But by afternoon the pain behind his eyes
forced him to lie down even if he could not sleep.  Had it been up to
him he would have taken meals in his room, even though he had few
accidents at the table.  Hollis cut everything into bite-sized pieces
and whispered to Jason what was on his plate.  For the rest of it Jason
merely moved slowly, sliding his hand up to glasses.  He could always
remember where he left his silverware and how much was left in his
glass so long as no one but Hollis tampered with it, but he did not
enjoy mealtime.  Alton generally managed to say something to set his
teeth on edge, such as it being God's will that he was blinded, since
he had insisted on joining the army.

"God had nothing to do with it," Jason corrected.  "It was those damn
French guns."  Em gasped and Jason could almost hear his father
frown.

"I wish you would be more careful how you talk around Em.  I wrote to
your commander to tell him your condition, but there has been no
reply."

"So have I--that is, Hollis has.  I expect he will be too busy to
answer.  Or--I had not thought about it, but he might have been killed
or wounded."

"When you are feeling better I will take you up to London to straighten
out your affairs.  I have also informed the War Office that you wish to
resign your commission, but as you are dead, they cannot oblige," Lord
Weir informed him matter-of-factly.

"Let it be then," Jason advised, wondering if it would not be better to
remain dead in the eyes of the world.  That was certainly how he felt
most of the time.

"May I go with you?"  Em asked.  "Don't say no, Father.  You know this
is the year I would have come out if not for the war and Mother being
sick.  And the Falcrests have invited me and offered to bring me out.
So there is no difficulty there."  Emily turned to Jason.  "Thank God
you did not get yourself really killed, Jason, or it would have been
put off another year."

"Em!"  Alton scolded.  "Have you no proper feelings?"  Jason burst out
laughing in spite of himself.  It was alWays like this.  Every time he
began to feel sorry for himself Em said something that made him feel
ridiculous.

"I do not know which of you is worse," Alton said, and snapped his jaws
shut such that even Jason could picture his outrage.  This made Jason
laugh even more.

"I hope you learn to conduct your speech with more discretion," Lord
Weir said stiffly, "if you ever plan on going to London."  Jason
thought he could detect a note of forbearance in his father's
admonition.

"But what did I say?"  Em pleaded.  "Something very selfish," said Lord
Weir.  "But it is the truth."

"A very unkind truth."

"I am sorry, Jason.  I would rather have you back than go to
London--really I would.  Now what are you laughing at?"

"Nothing," Jason said, composing himself, "but I am glad I did not ruin
your year."

"I suppose I won't get to go now.  I should not leave Mother alone here
anyway."

Jason could almost hear his sister pout.

"You are far too young to be shouldering the burden of nursing your
mother.  Besides, I am hoping your mother will be well enough to go
with us."

"Then I may go?"

"I cannot see that it would do any harm," Lord Weir said.

Jason smiled at Em getting her way.  In truth he had no desire to go to
London or anywhere else.  He felt safe at High Stand.  They had few
visitors.  He knew his way around now.  And there was a daily routine
to keep him busy, though no one except Em seemed to expect anything of
him.  But he knew he could not endure it forever.  High Stand was the
only place he wanted to be, yet he dreaded getting up in the morning.
At least in his sleep he saw things.  They were the bloody remnants of
the war but they had shape and color.

"Ready to go riding?"  Jason asked as Em's light tread came back into
the breakfast parlor.

"Not until we have visited with Mother."

"Surely she's not up yet."

"She had another bad night and she's asking to see you."

Em took Jason by the arm and he followed her upstairs.  They were
barely in the door when a querulous voice demanded, "Jason!  Who is
this Lady Falcrest?  Not Victoria Falcrest, surely."

Em guided Jason to a chair.  "Victoria is her mother-in

Besieged law," he stated.  "It's Marissa who has written you, a very
energetic young matron."

"A very interfering young woman.  Does she really think I would send
them my only daughter to bring out on the strength of such a casual
acquaintance?"  his mother demanded with more force than he had heard
from her since his return.

"They were very kind to me.  I'm sure the offer was made out of
kindness.  They are very informal at Falcrest

House.  I know you would like them."

"You're not saying send her?"

Jason heard the covers rustle impatiently.  "No, I should think you
would want to present her yourself.  Father plans on it anyway.  As
soon as you are strong enough to travel--' '

"I suppose I will be well enough if John says I am to be.  He decides
everything.  I have no say even in who I see or who I may have by me.
I'm a prisoner in my own house."

"But, Mother, has he denied you to anyone you want to see?"

"How would I know if he had?"  she demanded.

"If there is someplace you want to go, Em and I will go with you."

"Who do I know anymore?  All of my friends live at the other end of the
country or are dead.  The neighbors, the ones my age, are all bores.
I'm getting old, Jason, and nobody wants me."

"But that's not true," said Em.

"You have to put up with me.  I am your mother.  And I won't send you
to Victoria Falcrest and have her flaunt you as if you were her lovely
child."

"I don't know if Victoria has any hand in this," Jason defended.

"If she doesn't now, she would have by the time it was over.  Who knows
what man she might pick out for Em."

"But I don't want to get married," Em said simply.  "I just want to go
to balls and parties."

"Did you know she took Lord Blyly off me?"  "Who?"  Jason asked.
"Victoria Falcrest, of course."  "No, I mean who is Lord Blyly?"

"He was the handsomest man in London.  You have quite the look of him
in your uniform, except his was red and yours is blue.  Well, she did
not get to marry him, either.  He's dead now.  It serves her right."

"Then I should call you even," Jason said, feeling they had strayed
from the point.  "I assure you Victoria Falcrest bears you no ill will.
She seemed very sympathetic to your illness."

"How dare you tell her I was ill, the prying busybody."

"I only--she seemed concerned.  You know how it is when someone asks
after your family."

"I Won't be talked about as though I were half in my grave.  I'll bring
Em out, not Victoria Falcrest, and I'll do it when I am ready, not when
it is convenient for your father.  Now you two go and write the
Falcrests and give them a firm refusal couched in polite terms.  I
won't have them think me rag-mannered, either."  Jason got up, eager to
make his escape.  "And tell them I want my tea.  Now off with you,"
their mother commanded.

Once outside the room Jason and Em paused in unison to lean against the
closed door and breathe a sigh of relief.

"I haven't had such a dressing-down since I was a raw recruit."

"But if she is angry, Jason, doesn't that mean she is getting better?
It's more what she used to be like."  "What is wrong with her, Em?"

"I don't really understand.  She can't sleep--as though something is
preying on her mind.  And she's always talking about getting old.  Cook
says it's the change of life and she shall be fine in another year," Em
said adultly as she took his arm to lead him downstairs.

"A year?  She won't last a year at this rate.  Besides I should have
thought she's been through that already."

Someone came scuttling past with a tray and Em warned the maid that
their mother was fretful.

"Fretful?  She's downright nasty today," Jason said as Em giggled. "Now
for our ride, before we get in any more trouble."

"As soon as we write the letter.  It's been a week anyway.  You must
answer Elizabeth even if the answer is no.  It would be rude to do
otherwise."  Em led him into the library and pushed him into a chair.

"You are sounding very prim and proper all of a sudden," Jason said as
he listened to Em arrange her paper and ink.

""Dear Elizabeth,"" she began.

"We should just write a formal note to Marissa refusing the invitation
and thanking her."

"That would be cowardly," Em condemned.  "Besides, if they are as
informal as you say, Elizabeth can convey that to Marissa.  I do wish I
could meet them."

"Perhaps you shall."

"Now dictate to me," she demanded.

""Em is writing this, so if it doesn't make sense you will know she has
deceived me and put in her own words.  We go on tolerably well--' Stop
groaning, Em."

"I could do better than that."

""Mother is better than when I came but still not well.  Please convey
her thanks to Marissa for her kind offer, but she says there is only
one Em and she would not like to miss bringing her out.  She also would
not inflict such a handful on anyone not up to her tricks.""

"Jason!"

"Write it, brat.  "Father means for us to come up to town as soon as
Mother is well enough but it might not be soon.

I'm sure we will get to see you then.  Regards, Jason."" "Only
'regards

"If you put anything else down, I'll thrash you."

"How will you know?  If you get Mother to read it, we shall be at this
all day.  I know, we'll compromise on 'sincerely."" Em wrote this,
following it with "Your dearest Jason'.

"Seal it," Jason ordered.  "I don't want you adding any postscripts.
We'll ride into the village and post it now."

"Satisfied?"  she asked as Jason stuffed the letter into his coat
pocket.  She marveled at the gullibility of her brother and wondered if
all men were so dense.  It never even occurred to him that she and
Elizabeth had already exchanged letters or that she told Elizabeth how
he carded her letter around with him.

A threatening storm sent Jason to bed early that day with a raging
headache, and the thunderclaps that woke everyone a few hours later
tore him from a torturous sleep to live out his nightmares.  "We can't
move the cannon," he assured Hollis without knowing whom he was talking
to or who was holding him down.

"Hollis, can you keep him quiet?"  Lord Weir stepped into the room to
ask.  "He is distressing his mother."  "Have the guns stopped?"  Jason
asked.

"Yes, yes.  It's all over now, sir," Hollis assured him, laying him
back down onto his pillows.

"Who's left?  I know Kerry, Short and the Stoddard boy are dead.  I saw
Mason go down and Wycliffe, but he may have just been wounded."

Hollis had heard this litany many times but it rather shocked Lord
Weir.  He stood suspended in the room as Jason lived through the worst
of his horrors again.

"Hollis?  Tell me!"  Jason begged, clutching his servant's arm.

"All gone, sir, as far as we know."

Jason half sighed, half sobbed, and let Hollis lay him back down again.
In a few minutes he returned to a troubled sleep.

"I had no idea..."  his father said, stunned.

"He won't remember it in the morning and he only gets like this if his
head is really hurting him."

"We must do something.  I will take him to a London doctor."

Jason asked for a cigar as soon as he awakened the next day.  Hollis
bought these secretly for him in Hereford, since Lord Weir did not
approve of the habit, but they seemed to calm Jason and steady him.  As
Hollis readied his bath, Jason came to a decision.  He would have to
make it look like an accident so as not to hurt Em and his mother too
much.  No pistol to the head.  Therein lay the problem.  An accident,
even a planned one, had an element of uncertainty about it.  The
obvious thing would be to take a header out the window.  He was always
sitting on the sill to talk to Em down in the garden and everyone knew
he suffered dizzy attacks.  But he was only on the second floor.  A
drop of twenty feet was not likely to kill him.  A fall off a horse,
besides getting Em in trouble and scaring her, might only cripple him.
He would have to come up with something else.

"What are you planning today?"  Lord Weir's unexpected voice made Jason
jump and drop the stub of his cigar out the window where he had been
sitting.  "I wish you would give those things up," his father
continued.  "It's a filthy habit."

"Yes, I know," Jason said with a little edge of defiance in his voice.
It was not much of a rebellion but it was something of his own, and
along with his plot to murder himself, it gave him some strength
back.

"I thought you might like to drive into Hereford with me.  There's a
doctor there..."  Lord Weir watched his son stiffen.  "I want to
consult him about your mother.  She is not making any progress."  Jason
relaxed again.

"I will go with you if you can wait half an hour."  "Oh, we won't leave
till after breakfast.  Em has begged to come.  She says she has not
been shopping in months and I suppose that is true."

Jason followed his father out to the stable after breakfast much as he
used to follow him as a boy when he was begging to go along somewhere.
Lord Weir did not even slow his stride.  Jason smiled at being treated
normally even if it came to being reprimanded for smoking.

"Mother says to get her some more laudanum," Em said as Jason did his
best to help her into the carriage.  "Dr.  Skerdc did not leave enough
last time."

"Does she take that often?"  Jason asked, getting into the curricle on
the other side of Em.

"Just to get to sleep," Em said.

"Why, what's the matter with it?"  his father demanded.  "Nothing, as a
temporary hedge against pain.  Our surgeons only gave it regularly to
the hopeless cases, to ease them out."

Lord Weir was silent for a moment.  "Are you suggesting your mother is
dying?"

"Of course not, but the doctor may not know how she is using it.  That
would account for her being so listless and tired."

"We'll see."

Em kept them entertained with a flow of small talk until they reached
the town.  They stabled their horses at the Bull's Head.  While Lord
Weir went on his errand Em dragged Jason mercilessly from shop to shop.
Her descriptions of the hats and dresses on display had him in
stitches.  He forgot for a short hour all about dying.

Lord Weir ordered lunch for them at the posting house.  Jason was a
little nervous since it was the first time he had tried to take a meal
without Hollis in attendance.  Also, Dr.  Kew had been invited to join
them.

"You are not eating, Jason," observed Lord Weir.  "Does your head
ache?"

"A little."  Jason felt he was being trapped.  "But I expect it is from
laughing at Em's hats so much.  I hope I have not let her buy anything
too outrageous."

"Do you still have headaches then, bad ones?"  asked the doctor,
undeterred.

"Usually only toward evening."  "Every day?"  "Mostly."

"Then you are still healing inside."

"But it's been nearly a month."

"There may be a blood clot working itself out, and a bruise inside the
skull would take a lot longer to heal.  Give it time."

The doctor said no more, but the unsaid promise was there, and after
thinking about it, Jason decided it was a cruel treat to tempt him
with.  If they thought they could trick him into living a little longer
with that, they were wrong.  The hope of seeing again, always dashed
each time the bandages came off, was crueler than being blinded.

He rode back to High Stand in a black mood at variance with the gaiety
of Em and the satisfaction of his father.  Drowning was said to be
painless.  Jason could not imagine it being so, but that did not matter
to him.  The Wye River was only a few miles from home.  He should be
able to get there at night on foot.  At least it would be certain. With
any luck they would not even find him and it would be no worse than if
he lay buried somewhere in Belgium.  He went over it in his mind, the
route he would take.  He could almost count the steps. Tonight or
tomorrow night--the next time it got unbearable.  It was a choice he
could make, a way out if all else failed.  Having it gave him a sense
of power again.  He had thrown his life away so many times in battle he
almost felt that he had outlived himself anyway.

But there was Em.  She had tried so hard to make his life bearable, and
Hollis to whom he owed everything.  To his father he had never been
very close.  The youngest son, he had always been an afterthought, a
bother, someone his father had to get out of trouble when his oldest
brother Geoffrey got him into it.  Alton had always been disgustingly
good.  Jason could not help thinking about Geoffrey.

Geoffrey had been the best of them and the most suited to follow Lord
Weir.  But hunting over their hedges and ditches could be almost as
dangerous as being under fire and one did it more often.

It was his previous arrival in a house of mourning that had given Jason
such an ominous premonition about his second return.  There were
mornings when he woke up thinking that his mother was already dead. The
realization that she was not confused him, and their dream disturbed
him more than all his other nightmares.

Chapter Four

Lord Weir and Em had been talking about Geoffrey at dinner one night,
not unhappily, but it cast both Alton and Jason into a somber mood and
Alton was hard to take at the best of times.

"It was a judgment on him.  He tempted God once too often with his wild
behavior."

"It was an accident," Jason said tiredly.

"Jason is right," his father agreed for once.  It was Alton who took
himself off to bed early, even though it was Jason who had the
headache.  Em soon followed.  His father handed Jason a brandy and took
his teacup away from him.

"He can't help it, you know," Lord Weir said.  "It's what he
believes."

"But he didn't used to be like this.  He's gotten so much worse this
past year."

"He's under a severe strain.  His charitable works keep him so acutely
aware of hunger and poverty he can scarcely bear to eat.  Now he has to
fill Geoffrey's shoes and someday mine.  Farming is just not in him."

"Surely he can manage it," Jason said, knowing he could do the job
himself if he could but see.  "Not that I imagine it is easy," he added
out of respect for his father.

"He has no head for business.  He doesn't see that if the estate does
not make money it cannot support the tenants

OF US."

"You have time enough to teach him, Father."

"How can he learn from me when he does not even approve of me?"  Lord
Weir asked ruefully.

Jason laughed.  "He gets on your nerves, too, then.  I thought it was
just me."

"I was hoping you could do the actual work of running High Stand and
leave Alton free for his charitable works."

"What a pat answer!  Have you a longer speech to go with it?"

"I did not think we needed to speak of what we owe you and others like
you, the whole country--"

"We are not talking about you or the country," Jason said bitterly.
"It's me who is the problem.  I must have something worthwhile to do or
I will go mad."

"Then it's your duty to stay and advise Alton and keep him from doing
anything too foolish.  I can arrange matters so that you have charge of
most of the capital.  You can see the place does not go to ruin.  Alton
may never even marry."

"Do you imagine I shall?"

"I think you should consider it as soon as possible.  I know you love
Em and you rely on her for a great deal, but she is almost of an age
when she should be thinking of a life of her own."

Jason was silent for a moment as he realized he had only been thinking
about his own future, not anyone else's.  "You are right, of course.  I
have been very selfish thinking she would always be here."

"I meant I won't have her grow old nursing your mother.  And we shall
all miss her.  That's why I want to take her up to London with us.  She
should be meeting people.  She knows no one except the young fellows
around here."

"Take her.  I will stay with Mother.  At least I will be some use."

"Your mother is coming with us one way or another.

We have reduced the amount of laudanum she takes and she has grown
worse."

"I upset her."  Jason uttered his father's unspoken thought.  "The
devil is I can't make out why.  I never speak of the war or anything
else that should terrify her."  "It's not you."

Jason had gotten rather good at reading people's voices and this last
denial had been a lie.  Why his father would hide something from him he
could not imagine.

He dreamed that night he was looking through a long spy-glass, but what
he saw was not troops and guns, nor even woods and fields, but blue sky
with streaks of cloud.  It had a frame around it--a window.  It made no
sense to use a glass inside, but the window was very far away as at the
end of a tunnel.  A certain way he moved the glass it seemed quite
close, then it retreated again.  It was blurry and the sunlight
splitting through the defects in the panes made dazzling glints.

"You are awake early today, sir."

Jason twitched under the covers.

"I'm sorry," Hollis said.  "I didn't mean to startle you."  Jason
squeezed his left eye shut, then opened it again.  The light was real,
not part of some dream.  It actually hurt.  The blurriness cleared and
there was the window with its blessed blue sky and his faithful Hollis
laying out his clothes and looking a little grayer than the last time
Jason had seen him.

"Oh, close the drapes, Hollis.  The light hurts my eye."

Hollis moved to comply, caught himself, then laughed at Jason's
playfulness.  "Very funny, sir."

Jason got out of bed, walked to Hollis and embraced him.  "You are not
joking, sir!"

"No---Hollis, you are a lifesaver, you and Em.  I never would have made
it without the two of you."

"Oh, sir.  May I tell your father?  He has been that worded about
you."

"Yes, but help me get dressed first, and I want to tell Em."

Jason had trouble keeping himself calm enough to get his clothes on
before he dashed out the door, then clung dizzily to the banister as
the stairs wavered and swooped before his imperfect vision.

"Are you all right, sir?"

"Yes, it's just a little hard to focus."  His goal, the bottom of the
stairs, alternately receded to a tremendous distance or came back where
it belonged, depending on how he moved his eye.  Ironically he had to
close his eye and feel his way down to be sure of making it safely. All
the same, he felt like bounding down the steps three at a time as he
and Geoffrey had done when they were boys.  The outside steps also
betrayed him if he tried to focus on them and he decided it was like
nothing so much as being drunk.  He certainly felt giddy enough.  He
found Em in the garden picking flowers and walked unsteadily toward
her.  She was just a white blur at first.  Then he made out her guinea
gold curls, the fresh bloom of her face, and when she looked at him,
the blue glint of her eyes.  He caught his breath for he had seldom
seen a lovelier girl.  Like the flower buds she carried, she seemed
just on the verge of bursting into womanhood.  She watched him,
grinning.  With all his attention focused on her, he tripped over a
tree root and heard her giggle.

"Jason, over here," she called.  "See if you can guess these," she
challenged, picking out three flowers from her basket to hand him in
turn.  She held the rose to his face.

"This is a rose," he said numbly, trying to focus on it.  "A red
rose."

"Now you are guessing.  The red ones smell the same as the pink
ones."

"And this is a lily," he said, taking the next flower, "and this a
white peony."  Em gasped.  "And you are the most beautiful sister in
the world."  He hugged her crushingly until she stopped crying and
started laughing, then he picked her up and swung her around, flinging
flowers in all directions.

"Jason, you will upset us both.  How did it happen?"

"I just woke up and I could see!"  he said, staggering a little to
regain his balance.

Em collapsed in tears again.

"I didn't mean to make you unhappy," Jason said, laughing.

"I'm not unhappy, silly."

She grasped his hand and dragged him toward the house.  He stumbled
after her, laughing.

"So all this noise has a just cause.  I would not let you get away with
it otherwise."  His father met them in the hall with shaving soap still
on his neck and suddenly he didn't seem so imposing, just very relieved
and more tired than Jason had remembered.  Jason let go of Em and
hugged his father in spite of himself.  It was not a thing he
remembered ever doing in his life.  Then he blinked and started up the
stairs again.

"Where are you going?"

"To tell Mother."

"She's still asleep, or, at least, I hope so.  I will tell her
later."

Jason came back down, a little deflated.

"Besides, I don't want you to be shocked at her appearance We should
have warned you.  She is very frail."  "Yes, of course."

Jason and Em took the horses out and tore all over the countryside that
morning, crossing the Wye several times in their travels.  Jason
laughed at the river, but it had been a good friend to him when he
needed it.  Jason laughed at everything that morning.  It was when he
came in to get a hat that he finally chanced to catch sight of himself
in the mirror over his tall bureau.  It was as though there were a
stranger staring back at him, and quite an ugly one.  Involuntarily he
turned away.  Now he understood why he disturbed his mother.  The livid
scar across his cheek ended his dead eyelid, the one across his
forehead at the hairline.  He forced himself to look again.  Did he
shock everyone as much as he had just startled himself?.  How could Em
bear to look at him?  He did not consider himself a vain person, but
even he, who had looked on the ravages of war in other faces with a
stoic numbness, could not bear the sight for long.  And Elizabeth--he
would never be able to face her.

He sat down on the bed and stared out the window.  It might have to be
the river after all.  He was still sitting there an hour later when Em
found him.

"So here you are."

He turned away from her.

"Era, why didn't you tell me?  Why didn't you tell me how ugly I am?
Why didn't Hollis warn me?"

"You are not ugly."

"That's only because you care about me, because you have gotten used to
the way I look.  Well, I don't care about me and I will never get used
to it.  Leave me."

The bitterness of his dismissal sent even the redoubtable Em out of the
room.

"What is the matter, miss?"  Hollis asked.

"I would not go in there right now, unless you want to be torn to
shreds.  He says he's ugly.  I have an idea though.  I should have had
it ready in case, but I am not much good at sewing."

"I can sewa bit, miss.  What is it you want?"

"Almost time for dinner," said Era, breaking into Jason's room and his
thoughts without permission.

"I'm not going down, and no one can make me."  "I knew you would say
that.  Here, try this on."  "What is it, a mask?"

"That's what it started as.  Hollis helped me.  The least you can do is
try it.  Here, I will arrange it."

Em reached around his head to tie the patch in place at a jaunty angle.
Then she stepped back to regard her handiwork.  "Why, Jason, you look
dangerous!"

"What?"  He had been expecting her to lie and tell him he was not so
bad.  "What do you mean dangerous?"

He got up and went to the mirror and discovered Em was right.  By
blanking out the dead eyelid, they had taken away the incongruous part
of his face.  The scars actually led one to look at the patch and
wonder what horror lay beneath it.  And his clear blue left eye gleamed
with something akin to mischief now.  He posed and gawked in front of
the mirror until he gave Em the giggles.

"You are right.  I look like some sort of pirate or something."

"I think you should grow a beard or at least some mustachios."  Em
dimpled at him.  "With your color of hair they would probably be
red."

"Why, I look downright despicable and not at all like someone deserving
pity.  I like it."

"And you can have one made for every outfit like Lady Gayle and her
fans."

"Oh, no, black always.  Leather in the day and satin like this one for
evening wear."

Just then the door burst open.  "What are you two playing at?"  Lord
Weir demanded.  "You are making dinner very late."

"Sorry.  It is my fault," Jason volunteered.

"I might have guessed that," Lord Weir said with impatience.  "You are
not even changed yet.  Well, come down as you are.  I will not have
cold soup.  There is no reason for it."  Lord Weir slammed out of the
room but winked at Hollis as he passed him in the hall.

"Miss Weir," Jason said, formally holding out his arm.  "May I take you
down to dinner now?"

Em smothered her giggles.  "Yes, we can't have cold soup, can we?"

Alton's reaction, when he heard the news, was one of!  such relief and
joy that Jason was touched.  "The to all our prayers," his brother said
as he embraced

Jason opened his mouth but only said, "Yes, that must have been what
turned the trick."

They were a gay party at dinner, talking of old times.  Even Alton
laughed with them over some of Geoffrey and Jason's exploits.  Alton
often acted older than his father, but he flushed when Jason revealed
Alton was the one who let them in when they got locked out at night.

"Where did you go at night?"  Em asked innocently.

"Why, into the village--" Jason caught a frown from his father.  "Oh,
drinking mostly.  Sometimes we just rode."

"Your mother would like to see you after dinner," his father said.

Jason looked frankly at him.  "Alone this time?"-"Yes, she says we
coddle her too much."

Jason did not betray by so much as the flicker of his eyelid his shock
in his mother's appearance.  Her brown hair had lost its luster and was
turning gray.  Her angular face was pale and drawn.  At closer scrutiny
her main problem seemed to be a loss of weight.

"I don't sleep anymore, you know, not since Geoffrey died," Lady Weir
confided fretfully.  "You used to make me laugh so, the two of you.  I
was worn-out with taking care of you.  And the clothes you used to
destroy!  I had to spend all my spare time patching.  Why didn't you
come?"

"When he died?  Spain is a long way off.  I was on my way home when it
happened anyway."

"Half-dead," she scolded.  "I needed you, healthy and laughing.  Even
Em does not cheer me up, sometimes."  "You had Father, and Alton, as
well."

"That death's-head!  I would as soon talk to the undertaker."  '

Jason chuckled.

"With Alton it doesn't matter what happens.  Everything is God's will.
I never thought a son of mine would turn into such a pompous ass,"

Jason laughed at the plain speaking for which his mother had always
been notorious.

"You are different tonight.  I'm not afraid to talk to you," she
confided.

"Not quite so ugly anymore.  You have Em and Hollis to thank for
that."

"What are you talking about?"

"Covering the dead eye helped enormously."

"Jason, I'm your mother.  I could never think you ugly.  Remember I
have already seen you at your very worst," she said, half rising from
her pillows to search his face.  She sank back then, apparently
satisfied.  "When they told me you were alive it was like a dream.  And
when I awoke the next morning I feared it had been a dream and you were
still dead.  Then you came to see me and I discovered they had lied to
me.  You were not dead precisely, but you were not really alive,
either.  You were so distant somehow, almost as though one, or both of
us, was already gone from the other.  I lived in dread you would throw
yourself off a cliff if you could find one."

Jason laughed again but hollowly.  "I must have been a very depressing
fellow.  But I shall be better company now.  I have not tried yet, but
I think I will be able to read to you."

"Promise you'll never go away again."

"Never."

"I can't sleep anymore, you know, not without my medicine."

"Yes, you can.  I will stay until you fall asleep."

Jason began to take one or two meals a day with his mother.  That she
complained about the food was a sign to Jason that she was improving.
Her spirits were restored more quickly than her health, so Lord Weir
was still determined to carry her to London.  Jason thought it was too
soon.  When even his mother said she was ready for the trip, he came to
the crashing realization that he was not.

At first his blindness had been an excuse to hide at High Stand.  Then
it had been taking care of his mother.  He dreaded London and all those
he would meet there.  His mind had taken a short holiday from all
thoughts of the war.  He was not sure how he could face it again.

Lord Weir had determined that the weather would be fair for a few days
so he gave the order to pack for London, not expecting any objections,
even from his spouse.

Jason had been spending a lot of time in the schoolroom at the top of
the house.  He had the windows thrown open and had got out some of the
old toys.  Just as his mind had wandered here from that far-off hill in
Belgium, he now thought of that day when he committed his spirit to
this room.  It was as though the two places were irrevocably linked if
only in his thoughts.  He had been glad of a place to retreat to in the
heat of battle.  Now he was almost sorry he had thought of it, because
he would never be able to come up here again without being reminded of
the battle.  He tapped his cigar ash out the window as he sat sideways
on the sill, fondling the homemade cannon he had carved so long ago.
The drop was nearer forty feet from here--far enough if he found it
necessary.  Why he should still have fantasies about doing away with
himself he could not imagine.

That is where Lord Weir ran him to earth.  "What's this I hear from
Hollis about you not going to London?  I thought we agreed..."

"I can stay here with Mother."

"Fine company you two would be to each other.  The whole point of
going..."

"Is what?"  Jason snapped.

"Is to draw your mother out of her lethargy.  I also want her to see
another doctor."

"I do not believe she is well enough to make the trip."  "I will be the
judge of that," Lord Weir almost shouted.  "Don't play games with me,
Jason.  Why don't you want to go to London?"

Jason looked at him, resentful of having his fear dragged out for
examination.  His father fumed in front of him, expecting an answer.
Jason's face must have gone as blank as his mind.

"I don't know," Jason said numbly.

"If you do not leave High Stand now, you will never be able to do so."
Jason's tortured look stopped his father from saying any more and he
left him.  When Em slid into the room half an hour later he was still
sitting on the windowsill looking out over the fields of his youth, on
a life past.  He had thought that regaining his sight would solve
everything, but he still could not see beyond tomorrow.  "Is it true?"
"What?"

"You do not mean to go with us?"

"Yes, it's true."

"Then I will tell Father to put the whole thing off a year."

"What?  You have been looking forward to this so."  "Jason, I'm
afraid."  "Of what?"

"I don't know.  But I cannot go without you.  I won't know how to go on
and there are things I simply cannot ask Father."

"You must not do this to yourself.  You don't need me."  "But I do.  We
all do.  I have never seen Father so unhappy.  I was counting on you.
How could I enjoy myself?."  Em's tears were real this time.

"Father has never regarded me as much more than a nuisance, more so now
than before," Jason complained.

Em sniffed.  "He said something like that himself.  That he has never
valued you as he should and that now he is paying for it.  Don't do
this to him, Jason.  I know I torture him sometimes just to get my way,
but this is hurtful."  "Em, I don't mean to hurt anyone."

They were interrupted by shouting from below stairs so loud that even
Jason heard a "God's death!"  from Lord Weir.

"Probably shouting at one of the servants because he is angry with me,"
Jason said.

"We had better go anyway," Em said, wiping her eyes untidily on her
sleeve.

"What's all the commotion?"  Jason asked as they descended the
stairs.

"Your baggage, with a note of condolence," his father said angrily.

"Really!  I thought this was all stolen in Antwerp," Jason said as he
came down into the hall.

"I don't understand," said Hollis.  "How can they still think you are
dead?"

"Do you realize what this would have done to your mother--to all of
us--if you had not been safe upstairs when this arrived?"

"I had not thought of that."  Jason took the saber that Em handed
him.

"We must go to London to prove to them you are not dead," his father
asserted.

Jason took the note and read it through.  It was a rather chilling
piece of paper and he thoughtfully folded it and put it into his
pocket.  Perhaps he really was dead if he was so determined to bury
himself at High Stand, afraid to leave the sanctuary of his home.  But
exactly what he dreaded he could not specify.

"You know what this means, sir?"  Hollis asked momentously.

"What?"  Jason asked blankly.

"You won't get paid," Hollis intoned tragically.  Hollis's despair was
so genuine and so comic that Jason grinned sadly at him, then gave a
reluctant chuckle.  "Well, I suppose I will have to go to London then."
His heart began to race, as it always did when he heard the drums
beating.  He gripped the saber more tightly.  He could remember in the
morning before a battle he was always al most cold with calm, very
nearly numb.  But when the drums started rolling the advance, the blood
began pounding in his veins and did not let up.  Suddenly he could
think again, he could calculate trajectories, allow for wind, estimate
distances, everything that made him the effective killer he was.

"Where were you last night?"  his father demanded at breakfast on the
day of their departure.  Em was still upstairs with Lady Weir.

"The village," Jason said, swallowing a gulp of black coffee.

"What for?"

"Company.  I couldn't sleep.  You have been eager for me to go
there."

"Not to the alehouse ... or worse."  Lord Weir nailed him with a
penetrating stare.  "So help me God, if you turn out like Geoffrey, I
will disown you."

"Geoffrey?"  Jason asked, stunned.  "What are you talking about?  You
were always so proud of him."

"You didn't have to live with him those last eight years--always
drinking and whoring.  I support two of his bastards now--both
daughters.  Why couldn't he have married and given me grandchildren I
could have by me?"  "I didn't know," Jason said in shock.

"You must have known what he was like.  You used to go with him.  I
never forgave him for dragging you into those dens, with you little
more than a boy."

"It did me no harm.  When Geoffrey took me with him, nothing he did
seemed so wrong.  He was like that."

"Yes, I know.  One sunny smile and people forgave him anything. Whereas
you get raked over the coals for it.  Why did you go last night?"

"I don't know.  It didn't make me feel less lonely.  Spain we all
thought it didn't matter.  We were so close to being dead we didn't
really care what we did."

"And now?"

Jason shook his head.  "There should be more to it."

"If you want something more, then get married and make me some
legitimate grandchildren."

"That's all I need.  right now, a wife.  I can barely keep myself
together."

"A wife is exactly what you need.  Someone to take care of.  She would
take your mind off your own problems."  "Father, I cannot marry."

"Jason, you must.  Alton has no intention of doing so.  He will go
through the motions of running High Stand, but he 'will not father me a
pack of brats like some performing bull.""

"Are those his words?"  Jason asked, laughing.

"Shocking, is it not?  I never heard him speak so strongly about
anything."

A sudden thought struck Jason.  "That's why you want me to go to
London!"

"One of the reasons."

"You play as close to the vest as Em.  Now I know where her subtlety
comes from."

Lord Weir smirked in a satisfied way.

Jason could not tell his father the truth, that he had been trying to
cure himself of Elizabeth Falcrest.  Why he dreaded meeting her in his
blinded state he understood.  But why he should run shy of her now that
he was partially well was a mystery to him.  He thought of little else
but Elizabeth when he was alone.  He tried to convince himself that he
had an abnormal fascination with her, that she had only meant to be
kind.  But then he remembered that last tearful look she had given him
and her pathetic plea for him to be careful.

No other woman could ever be what Elizabeth was to him.  He now knew
that, after his failed attempt in the village.  He blamed it on the
drink and the girl kindly did, also.  It was Elizabeth or no one.  Yet
he had no claim on her and no right to put himself forward as limited
as his prospects were.

Also he was only half-standing sometimes, like a damaged wall.  He
never knew when a good nudge might bring his pile of bricks and mortar
tumbling to a heap.  It was not a pleasant worry and one he did not
like to share.  Here at High Stand, where no one shook him, he felt a
degree of safety.  In London, anything might happen.

The drive from High Stand to London was a depressing one for Jason.  He
could not forget what a struggle he and Hollis had suffered to get him
home, how tired and hungry they had been.  Now, only a month later, he
felt scornful of the ease in which they traveled and perhaps resentful
of their previous want.  Although he kept his mouth shut, he felt
impatient with his mother for thinking the journey so hard.  He wisely
did not compare it to any of his travels in Spain.  Then he realized
with a guilty start that the effects of a sleepless night and too much
ale had given him the headache that made him so cranky.  Of his
dizziness from the previous journey there was no sign.

He resolved to say nothing unless he could form a cheerful reply and
left the ordering of the journey to his father.  Reluctant as he was to
make the trip, he tried not to cast a pall over Em's excitement.

Chapter Five

Clive Falcrest was limping up the steps to the War Office when he
blindsided Jason, who was just coming out with Lord Weir.  They began
to apologize to each other.

"Clive!  It's good to see you again."  Jason offered his hand.  "I
meant to write, but I thought I would see you before you got my letter.
This is my father, Lord Weir."

"Happy to meet you, sir," Clive said, shaking his hand.  "God, it's
good to see you, Jason.  I would not have recognized you.  You are
looking much better than when last I met you."

"And I can see now, though not very well, of course."  "I know.  Your
sister wrote to Elizabeth," C!I've said warmly, glad that one of his
victims, as he thought of all the men he had sent to Belgium, was
making a recovery.  "You promised to call on me.  Do you still have my
direction?"

"Stored in my head," said Jason, making another mental note to find out
what exactly Em had written.  "We have all come up to town, mostly to
see if I am absent without leave.  My servant hustled me home so
efficiently they lost track of me."

"Are you in trouble?"

"Yes, but they have forgiven me.  It is not as though I

Besieged am any good to them.  A one-eyed gunnery officer is not much
more use than a blind one, even for teaching."  "You are resigning your
commission, then?"

"Yes," Lord Weir answered for Jason.  "As soon as they acknowledge that
he is alive at all."

"Did you say your whole family is in town?"

"Just Lady Weir and my daughter, Emily."

"You must bring them to call on my family," Clive said.  "Elizabeth has
been yearning to meet Em after all the letters they have exchanged."

"All what letters?"  Jason asked suspiciously.

"You know what girls are like when it comes to writing.  They spend
half the day at it, whereas you or I find even a simple note a trial.
Promise you will bring them?"

"Yes, of course, Jason will bring them tomorrow," Lord Weir said.  "I'm
sure Em would like to thank Lady Falcrest in person for her kind offer
to bring her out."

Lord Weir was very pleased with Clive and the way he and Jason got on.
He had almost been dreading Jason's meeting with his wartime friends,
that it would stir up too much in Jason.  He was surprised then to
learn that Clive and Jason had met only a few times, but he supposed
anyone who had passed through that same perdition would feel a
comradeship of easy acquaintance.

Not only were Victoria and Elizabeth at home the next day, but Marissa
and Clive, as well.  They were already entertaining a stern young man
and an older woman dressed in deep mourning.  These other guests did
not inhibit Em and Elizabeth from hugging like long-parted friends, not
just casual correspondents.  Jason watched in awe as Victoria and his
mother greeted each other pleasantly and his mother seated herself to
be introduced to Lady Amanda Cairnbrooke and her son Anthony.  The
undercurrent of tension between Victoria and Helen was dispelled by the
fluttering Lady Amanda.  In spite of her inconsequential babble, Jason
rather thought that Lady Amanda sensed an awkwardness and was trying to
smooth it over.  He roused himself to be introduced to Tony
Cairnbrooke, who never smiled but turned an even colder eye upon him
when Ja-sows war record was made known to him.

Elizabeth's delight at seeing Jason whole, or nearly so, was not
dampened in the least by Cairnbrooke's ill humor.  She had thought of
him constantly in the past weeks and fretted when she had not heard a
report from Em.  It did not disturb her that Jason would never know
they had conspired to make him well.  Seeing him again was enough.  He
was as handsome as ever in her eyes, perhaps more intriguing now, with
the eye patch.  Even if he had been ugly, she still would have loved
him.

Elizabeth had a certain contempt for her own beauty, for it caused men
to expect her to be vain and frivolous, which she was not.  She had no
patience with anyone who could not see past her face.  And she thought
Jason, even with one eye, had that much acuity.

Jason had braced himself for the meeting but was again stunned by
Elizabeth's classically beautiful face, her frank blue eyes and her
generous smile.  Jason thought she looked thinner than he remembered,
as though she had been ill these past weeks, not him.  Her face more
tightly drawn than he remembered did not detract from her beauty.  If
anything it made her look more fragile and delicate.  Only when he took
her hand did he feel the tenacious strength of her.  It flowed into him
like a companionable warmth and she looked him full in the face,
unafraid of what she saw.  She had a way of acknowledging an injury
while letting a man know it made no real difference.  Before Jason knew
it he was explaining how it happened, a thing he scarcely spoke of to
anyone.

"The gun blew up?"  Elizabeth asked.  "I had heard they could do
that."

"If they overheat.  But we were being careful.  As I remember it a
French shell hit our gun and exploded it pre maturely.  But it comes to
the same thing.  What saved me was the horse that fell on me."

"I have never been glad before that a horse fell on someone," Marissa
chimed in.

"You remember Lady Falcrest?"  C!I've asked Jason.  "She is a cruel
woman."

"Clive, you beast!  What will they think of me?"

"I cannot believe that you could be cruel," Jason said, taking
Marissa's hand.

"Oh, yes," Clive teased.  "Everyone else pulls a long face at my not
being able to ride.  Marissa gives me a monstrous colt, commands me to
lengthen my stirrups and get on with it."

"Well, I think it would work, if he did not overdo it the first few
times.  What do you think, Jason?"

"Don't answer if you mean to agree with her," Clive cautioned.

"Jason," his mother commanded, and he obediently went to stand by her.
"Lady Amanda was just telling me about her son, Charles, who is still
missing and I wonder if the War Office could have made another
mistake."

"Perhaps you know him," Lady Amanda suggested hopefully.  "Charlie
Cairnbrooke?  He was in the 12th."

"Mother, it was a big army," Tony commented dryly.  "Where is the 12th
now, Clive?"  Jason asked.  "Still in Paris, but..."

"If he was wounded, they would send him home, would they not?"  Lady
Weir asked.

"Depends on how bad it was," Jason advised.  "If he was able to travel
at all, he would stay with his regiment and be treated by their own
surgeon.  That is the best thing really.  Perhaps that is what happened
and you just have not heard from him yet.  When was his last letter
dated?"

"He hasn't written at all," Elizabeth said despondently.  "I do not
think--I do not know what to think."

"And what from the War Office?"  Jason asked

"Just a letter saying he is missing," Tony answered.  "I

should have gone to Belgium myself to look for him."  "Your father
would not permit it, Tony."

"They did not say he was dead," Lady Victoria said staunchly.  "Charlie
and Clive have been friends forever.  I do not believe Charlie can be
dead.  He is such a boy still."

Doubt was evident on Elizabeth's face.  Jason watched her and realized
she had just as firm a grasp of this Charlie's chances as did Clive and
Tony.  But she would not say anything in front of Lady Cairnbrooke.

"It would not be the first time they lost track of someone," Em said
helpfully.  "Look at what happened to Jason."  '

"It's true.  They still have me listed as dead.  All because my baggage
was mislaid in Antwerp.  I would like to help.  I have not much else to
occupy me.  Have you a likeness of your son?"

Lady Amanda reached into her reticule, brought out a miniature and
handed it to Jason.

"I visited the Royal Hospital at Chelsea," Cairnbrooke said stiffly.
"They have no record of him?"

"Are there any other hospitals in London taking in wounded?"  Jason
asked.

"I don't know yet."

"My father knows some people at the War Office," Jason offered.  "He
can check and we'll divide them up."

"William knows the docks as well as Clive does," suggested Marissa. "He
won't mind checking for incoming ships."

"They are just beginning a large evacuation of casualties from Ostend,"
said Clive gravely.  "Not all of them, of course, but many of those who
will never rejoin their regiments."

"Are they all being landed at London?"  Jason asked.  "Some may have
been landed at Portsmouth.  There is a hospital there," Clive said,
wincing at his own memories of that hospital and glancing at Tony to
see how he was taking all this.  "There are general hospitals at
Colchester and York, as well."

"York?"  Lady Amanda asked in despair.  "You mean Charlie may be in
this country in another city and we don't even know it?"

"Don't worry," Tony assured her.  "We will look every-place we can
think of."

"We need a plan," Jason said.

In short order, Cairnbrooke and the two former officers had contrived a
schedule and list of duties, ruthlessly commandeering WillJain's time
as well as Lord Weir's.  Jason noticed that Tony did not volunteer his
father's assistance.

"Take heart," Jason said to Lady Amanda as their carriage was being
brought around.  "If he is in England, we will find him."

Elizabeth tried to take her leave of Jason without trembling.  When
Lady Cairnbrooke had called the week before to let them know Charlie
was missing, they had all wept.  Clive had tried to reassure them.  It
had occurred to her then that an honorable person would tell them about
the engagement, but there seemed little point.  It even seemed to
Elizabeth that such an announcement would increase everyone's grief and
make her the center of attention rather than Charlie's mother.
Elizabeth would by far rather be the one to give comfort than to
receive it.  If Charlie was dead, no one need ever know except her.  If
he returned--she imagined once again being married to Charlie.  It was
no longer just depressing.  It was now repugnant to her.  Now there was
Jason alive and well.  Jason spelled hope of the highest order and she
loved him.  What he felt about her she had no idea.

Tony stopped in Green Street the next morning to pick up Jason as
arranged.

"You don't have to come if you would rather not," Tony said with a grim
look.

"I said I would help.  Why would I back out now?"

Jason asked as he climbed into the curricle and Tony drove off.

"The same reason Clive would like to.  You have seen far too much of
this sort of thing already."

"So I should be more able to endure it than--"

"Than someone who was never in the army.  You don't have to say it."

"You're just like Geoffrey."

"Who?"

"My eldest brother.  He's dead now.  He always envied me going into the
army.  He thought it would be all sorts of fun."

"That's not why I wanted to go."

Jason glanced at Tony, but the handsome profile stared straight ahead
and offered no more conversation until they pulled up at St.  George's
Hospital.

Their visits here and to the other local civilian hospitals: St.
Bartholomew's, St.  Thomas's and Guy's, yielded little.  A soldier was
not likely to end up at any of these unless his family had him moved
and then they would most likely take him home.

At the Royal Hospital at Chelsea the interview was with a hard-pressed
surgeon who admitted the hospital register was not kept as it should be
but promised to try to keep an eye out for Charlie Cairnbrooke.  Jason
requested and got permission to visit the wards to ask after
Cairnbrooke.  Many of the wounded were lodged in the great dining hall
temporarily until they either died or could be moved to more permanent
accommodations with the pensioners who were residents at the
hospital.

"You could as easily be lying here," Tony said.  His eyes had a softer
look now and he seemed more approachable.  "This isn't so bad compared
to the field hospitals."

"I should have gone to look for him no matter what Father said."

"He was an officer.  The wounded officers were always carried behind
the lines and treated first, if the wound was of any severity."

"You're telling me he would have got the best of care while these poor
devils suffered and waited."

"Yes," Jason said, and shuddered to think what would have become of him
without Hollis to look after him.

"I want the truth for once, not what you would tell my mother.  I want
to know what it was actually like."

Jason looked up into Tony's intense blue eyes.

"There was not a surgeon for every hundred men that were wounded,
possibly not one for every three hundred.  All our preparations had
been made on the side of killing, not aimed at preserving life."

"That is about what I expected," Tony said coldly, and Jason realized
he was confronting a man who would have made an admirable soldier.
Without even knowing him well he was both glad Tony had been spared and
sorry that he had not fulfilled his destiny.

As they got back into the curricle, Tony demanded, "Is there any point
in continuing?"  "Yes, most definitely."  "Why do you say that?"
"Luck."  "What?"

"Some very odd things happen in war.  If you believe in luck at all you
have to believe there is a chance your brother survived."

"You appeal to the gambler in me.  God knows, Charlie was a gamester.
Very well, we will continue the search."

Tony dropped Jason in front of his house and he had no more reached the
bottom step than Clive came out.  "Any luck?"  Clive asked.

"No, but they are still bringing wounded from the ships,

so we will go back every day or so.  What about you?"

"William and I have written to the military hospitals at Colchester,
Portsmouth and York, and, of course, to the general military hospital
in Brussels.  It's my opinion a visit would be more use, but we shall
see what we can find out by the post first."

Jason was almost glad to have a task that was less than frivolous to
occupy him in the daytime, for it seemed they were going to be very gay
and frivolous at night.  Lady Falcrest had got them invited to an
evening party they were all attending.  Emily was looking ravishing in
a straw-colored muslin.  Elizabeth was wearing such a pale blue it
might have been white.  It reminded Jason of the shadows on snow.

Em was surrounded by a shocking number of men immediately, leaving
Jason looking a little harassed, for his father had sent him off with
an admonition to keep his sister in line.

He would have thought Em would have hung back more, but she looked so
sympathetically at anyone in uniform that she soon had several young
officers about her.  Did they have to stand so close?

Clive wandered over.  "She's a hit," he observed.

"Don't ask me if I'm glad.  I suppose I should have expected this."

"You're just lucky I have a stiff leg or I would be claiming a dance
myself."

Jason smiled.  "It's hard to know how to warn her against soldiers
since I was one myself."

"All the more reason to try to frighten them off, knowing what they are
capable of."

Clive and Jason both watched Em in a brotherly way, for at the end of
each set, Em immediately disappeared rather than coming back to Marissa
or them.  They found her either in the refreshment salon sampling the
champagne or walking the cooler corridors quite improperly on the arm
of a near stranger.

"Jason!"  someone called as he searched futilely for Era.  "I thought
you were dead.  I saw you take a direct hit."  A

sandy-haired man made his way to Jason and shook his hand warmly.

"Not quite, Bevers.  I see you didn't get off scot-free."

"It's mending," Bevers said of his arm in its sling.  "Randall, over
here."

"Jason--good to see you.  I heard you were blinded.  We didn't know
what to think."

"Only half-blind now.  If my condition continues to improve I should be
healed within the month."

"Too bad about your troop, though."

Jason's lack of response cast a damper on the other two and no one
could think of anything else to say.

"I had best get back to my wife.  I expect I will see you again."
Bevers wandered away.

"Rough coming back, is it?"  Randall asked.

"Worse than I expected.  I don't feel like I belong here or anywhere,"
Jason confirmed.

"You'll adjust.  You call on me, now.  You know where I live."

Between being asked about his injuries and attempting to keep up with
his sister, Jason's nerves were shattered by the end of the evening. He
desperately needed a few moments to himself and a strong cigar, neither
of which he could manage in the crowded ballroom.  When the Falcrest
coach left them at their door sometime after one o'clock Jason had not
even the strength to lecture Em on her behavior.

"and there is to be a balloon ascension Wednesday afternoon.  I may go
to that, don't you think?"

"So long as you stay by Lady Falcrest or me.  This wandering off with
strangers looks very bad."

"But they are soldiers, most of them."

"Which does not mean they are to be trusted.  I was one myself, so I
should know."

"Trusted about what?"

Jason paused as he was picking up the candles left for them in the
hall.  "I'm a little tired to explain it tonight."

"Oh, your poor head.  I am a beast to keep you up.  Good' night,
Jason."  Em kissed him so sweetly he put her errors down to innocence
and hoped everyone else would be so generous.

William did not think to question his young wife's seating
arrangements.  They were never as random as they seemed.  When he gave
it some thought it made sense to have Clive at a corner where he would
have room for his stiff leg and Jason at another where his blind side
would ignore only a corner of the room.  The girls were clustered in
the center where they could talk, with Victoria and Lady Weir on either
side of them.  The interesting part was seating Jason next to
Elizabeth.  William could already see an attraction there, at least on
Jason's part.  But he could see that his mother did not like it.  She
knew Jason's expectations were not great, for Jason made no secret of
this.  Also, there was a stiffness between his mother and Lady Weir, or
perhaps that was his imagination.  But it was only a dinner.  He had to
admit he liked Jason.  Of all the men who had courted Elizabeth, Jason
had the least affectation, and not just because he was a soldier.  He
had the least amount of pride to get in the way of what he was really
like.  William might have been startled to know that sitting next to
Jason was Elizabeth's idea.

Marissa looked around the table with satisfaction as Emily's happy
chatter bubbled up and down, enlivening Elizabeth and causing Lady Weir
to smile.  Elizabeth and Jason were talking about horses, of all
things.  Marissa had never thought Elizabeth much more than mildly
interested in horses.

"They all want me to get a younger horse, but I am comfortable With old
Bess--no surprises.  I know exactly what she will do."

"Which is almost nothing," Clive scoffed.

Jason laughed and looked appreciatively at Elizabeth.

"Well, she never spooks, does she, Marissa?"  Elizabeth said loyally.

"No, never, and she can still jump, but William says she is over
twenty.  That's why he wants you to get used to a younger mare."

"No, Bess would miss me too much."

"I respect your loyalty," said Jason.  "But you could ride two horses
and rest Bess every other day.  And a younger horse is not necessarily
more dangerous or flighty.  I have never known a more careful goer than
Weaver, who is only five.  I even rode him when I was still blinded."

"You rode without being able to see?"  Elizabeth asked as Marissa,
Clive and William looked at Jason in surprise.

"Em went with me and the horse could see perfectly well," Jason said
with a laugh.

"Oh, that makes it all right then," Clive said, shaking his head.

"Took my breath away when I saw the two of them cantering up the drive
as bold as you please," Lord Weir said with a twinkle.  "I still think
Em put you up to that."  "I will never tell."

"No, you are all as close as a bunch of clams--even Alton--when one of
you is in trouble.  That's how I know there is something afoot."

"So that's why we could never keep anything from you;" Jason
concluded.

"I don't know why you never just came and told us what happened, like
when you got shot holding up the mail coach," Lady Weir said, entirely
satisfied with the stunned silence she produced.

Lord Weir choked a little.  Jason flushed and wiped his forehead.  "We
couldn't tell, because we were not supposed to be careering around the
country on Father's two best hunters at night."

"But how did you come to hold up the mail?"  Elizabeth demanded with a
laugh.

"It was an accident, really.  We had always played at being highwaymen
when we were younger.  We jumped a hedge and landed right in front of
it.  The driver tangled the team in the harness stopping them to keep
from running over us.  What must Geoff say then, with them already
shouting at us, but "Stand and deliver' or some such nonsense.  Then he
tore away, laughing his head off."

"And the guard unloaded his blunderbuss into Jason's backside," Lord
Weir finished amid laughter.  "I'm surprised you survived your
childhood with Geoffrey for an older brother."

"We were just thankful neither of the horses was hit," Jason said.

"But how did you get the shot out?"  asked William in some sympathy.

"Alton did the best he could with his penknife, but he must have missed
some.  Finally Geoffrey confessed so he could get me a doctor.

"Not- really," interrupted Lady Weir.  "He told your father he shot you
himself when you two were out hunting."  "What?  Why would he do
that?"

Jason asked.

"I suppose he thought it was not as bad as the truth," said Lord Weir.
"Not a brain in his head.  Did he imagine I would not hear about the
mail and draw my own conclusions?  So then he got an even worse
tongue-lashing for dragging you into trouble and for lying about it."
"How old were you then?"  asked Elizabeth.  "Fourteen, I suppose." 
"And Geoffrey?"

"Twenty, but I need not have gone with him."

"You were no angel, either," complained Lord Weir.  "If I mistake not
you were the one to set the haymow on fire."

"I didn't think you knew about that--well, I did get the pipes and
tobacco, so it was my fault."  The laughter over Jason's crimes had
just died down and the footman had set out the fruit and nut dishes
when a small waif in a long nightdress slid in the door and ran to
Marissa's lap.

"Amy, what are you doing up?"

"Laughing woke me up," she said, peeking shyly at Jason.

"I doubt that.  I think you must have been sitting at the top of the
stairs," Marissa said, picking her up.  "You can meet everyone, then
straight to bed."  Marissa introduced everyone at the table, but Amy
eyed Jason with special wonder.

"Are you a pirate, now?"  she asked finally, and Jason laughed.

"Nothing so interesting, I fear.  So you do remember me, then?"

Amy nodded solemnly.

"I will take her up for you," Elizabeth offered, perhaps fearing what
the baby would say next.

"Will Jason come up, too?"  Amy begged.

Even Marissa looked surprised.

"If you like.  Did you want me to check under the bed for you?"  Jason
asked jokingly as he rose.

"Oh, no, I already looked there."

William shook his head as Jason opened the door for Elizabeth, who was
carrying Amy.  "I really never know what she is going to say."

"Keeps you hopping having a daughter," said Lord Weir.  "Boys are easy
to raise compared to girls.  Seems only a few years since Em was that
small."

"Seems only a few years since I was listening to grown-up parties
through the banisters," Em said.

"That was only a few years ago," her mother corrected.  They were
getting used to Lady Weir's dry wit, so they laughed at Em's
confusion.

Amy treated Jason to the most amazing display of delaying tactics he
had ever witnessed.  All the dolls and animals in the room had to be
clustered about her on the bed, including her real puppy, Arf.  Jason
did not think she was the sort of child to need all this comfort at
night, but he played along because she reminded him of Em when she was
little.  Jason had always been grateful for the arrival of Em, for it
gave his mother another interest than himself and freed him to tag
along after Geoffrey.  He also enjoyed being someone's older brother.
Just now he was enjoying the picture of Elizabeth maneuvering Amy past
her bedtime obstacles and tucking her in.

"Is tomorrow the balloon day?"

"Yes, tomorrow we go to see the balloon."

"Is Jason coming with us?"

"If he likes," Elizabeth said automatically.

"Yes, I will be there."

Finally satisfied, Amy squirmed down under the covers until only the
top of her head was visible and she allowed them to leave.

"She reminds me of Em," Jason confided.

"Your sister is sweet," Elizabeth said as they started back
downstairs.

"She does give that impression."

"Are you saying she is not?"  Elizabeth turned to look at him with a
twinkle in her eyes.

"She is a baggage.  She gets away with murder and we let her.  I think
Amy will be like that."

"She is already," said Elizabeth, laughing at his candor.  "You should
see how she manipulates the servants.  She never tries anything on
Marissa, but William is putty in her hands."

"Not such a bad feeling, to be putty in someone's hands---even a
child's."  Jason had been thinking about what it would be like to watch
his own wife putting their little girl to bed someday.  It was a side
of domestic life he had forgotten about and it had a vast appeal for
him.  Elizabeth caught him looking at her speculatively and smiled at
him.

"You will not forget--about this balloon?  For I assure you she will
not."

"No, I mean to be there.  Em wants to see it, too.  But why is Amy so
interested in me?  I would have thought I would have given a child the
night horrors?"

"Why?"  asked Elizabeth without thinking about Jason's face.  "Oh, I'm
sorry."

"It's all fight.  I have quite gotten used to being ugly."  "Now you
are roasting me," Elizabeth complained.  "No."

"But you are not, you know."

"You have not seen me without this."  Jason pointed to the patch.  "Em
devised it."

"Then she is a sweet girl and I am a wretch, for I have ended up
talking about the two things I was going to try to avoid."

"What are those?"  he asked in some surprise.  "Your wounds and your
horses."  "Horses?"

"Yes, C!I've could not bear to have them mentioned for the longest
time.  He lost three in Spain."

"After I lost two I just rode whatever the Board of Ordinance came up
with, and I made sure I did not get to like them overly much.  For
Clive, in the cavalry, it would have been much harder.  His wound, too,
stopping him tiding.  What a cruel blow."

"It must have been worse for you, not being able to see."

"I did feel a little lost for a time."

"I am glad you got over it so quickly.  I feared for a time that Clive
would never get any better."  Jason was surprised to find that even
Elizabeth's angelic face could look tired.  It made her more human,
more approachable there in the upper hallway.

"I cannot picture Clive anything but competent and sure-.  of
himselfi"

"Oddly enough this last battle brought him back to selfi But I am a
little afraid what will happen to him now."

"I thought it was just me."

"Oh, no," said Elizabeth, seating herself on the top stair step.  "They
have all come back changed."

It would have seemed an odd thing to do with another woman, but Jason
sat beside her as though it were an everyday occurrence.  "Then this
displacement I feel is not so strange.  I had thought I would be glad
when the war was over, but I only feel lost."

"You are not alone.  Oh, they are all glad to be back, of course, but
as for being glad it is over, I'm not so sure.  They seem to have more
strength to continue with it than to stop."

"Perhaps we are just not used to peace.  We have been at war most of
our lives.  We never had the chance to stop and count the cost
before."

"C!I've is so glad you are all right.  He feels responsible."  "For
what?"

"For sending so many to their deaths."

"Good Lord, he can't take on a burden like that.  We all went by
choice."

"Don't you feel responsible for your men?  I'm sorry.  I should not
have asked that," Elizabeth hastened to add when she saw the pain come
into Jason's face.

"No, you are right.  I was doing the same thing, blaming myself for
their deaths, when there's not a damn thing I could have done to save
them.  I have gone over and over it.  I did not make any mistakes.  I
would have done nothing differently, well, almost nothing," he
corrected, pausing to think of the French cuirassier.  "There is no way
I could have saved any of them."

Suddenly they heard a babble of talk as the ladies rose to move into
the drawing room.  Elizabeth hastened to get up.  Jason took her hand
and helped her.  It sent an odd thrill though him to touch her, to feel
the strength in her seemingly delicate fingers.  As they parted in the
hall, she said, on impulse, "I'm so glad you came back all right."

Jason returned to the dining room and the port with already an odd sort
of buzz in his head.  He felt as though he had just got a promotion.
No, he felt better than that.  Until that moment he would not have said
he came back all right.  If Elizabeth thought so, perhaps he was not
such a cripple after all.

Jason and William were mounted and Clive rode with the ladies in a
large, open carriage to watch the balloon.  Clive walked Em and
Elizabeth down for a closer look at the apparatus.  Although it was
still an hour before the time of the ascension the huge balloon was
already inflated.

Amy demanded to sit on the front of Jason's horse.

"Do you mind?"  asked William.

"Not at all," Jason said, amazed that they would trust her to him.

"We might as well 'have all ridden if Amy means to be on horseback
anyway," Marissa said as she watched her daughter pat Weaver's neck.

"I do not think Clive can manage it yet," William said.  "Jason," cried
Em as she led the way back to the carriage, "they are letting people
ride up and down in the balloon before the ascension.  May I go?"

"May I go?"  Amy asked William, reaching her hands out to him.  He took
her from Jason and settled her in front of him on his great gray horse.
Jason thought William looked a shade paler.

"No, Amy, it is too dangerous," Marissa said with a certain finality.

"More dangerous than riding?"  Amy demanded.  "Infinitely," her father
said.

"Is it really dangerous, Jason?"  Em asked.

"I would imagine so.  What if the rope broke?"

"But this may be my only chance!"

"I do not think it is quite the thing for young ladies to be hoisted up
and down in hot-air balloons," commented Victoria.  "Think of how you
would have to be lifted into it."

Clive looked expectantly at Jason.

"I am really not up to this," Jason said helplessly to Elizabeth.

"Putty," Elizabeth accused with a smile, mystifying the rest of them.

"What?  Oh, I was forgetting how dizzy you get," said Era.  "You might
fall out.  I don't want to go then."  Em looked at the ground.

"We can walk back closer to watch the other people riding it," Clive
suggested.  He limped down the hill with her, chatting kindly to her to
ease her disappointment.

Jason dismounted to help Elizabeth back into the carriage.  It was such
an ordinary thing to do, but it gave him an unaccountable amount of
pleasure just to touch her.  "Would it have made you dizzy?"  she asked
him.

"There's no saying.  Turning my head made me dizzy for a while.  Was it
craven of me to use that as an excuse?"

"You are lucky to have one," commented William, "I simply cannot stand
heights."

Amy looked around at her father.  "Let's go closer then, Father."

"Very well, but we have to get down when they are going to launch it.
Sometimes horses are afraid of big things that move."

"I'm not afraid."  Amy's voice trailed off as William walked the horse
down the slope.

"Would he have gone if Amy had insisted?"  Jason asked.

"Oh, yes," said Marissa.  "He would have gritted his teeth and managed
it somehow."

"Then cast up his accounts," Victoria said with a reminiscent smile.

After a few short days Jason was coming to realize that he had wildly
underestimated the amount of trouble Em could get into in London.  It
was a good thing he had come, after all, for his father would never
have been equal to the task of controlling her.  A stern disciplinarian
with his three sons, Lord Weir let his only daughter run her length
with no more than a mild and amused admonition.  He would forgive her
anything and she knew it.  She took advantage of his weakness
unmercifully by claiming ignorance when she ran afoul of any
convention.  Jason was hard-pressed to decide what he must warn Em not
to do, for she independently thought to take her maid walking down Bond
Street and managed to lose them in Covent Garden market.  Even the
staid Marissa rolled her eyes at the fop who escorted her home.

The Faitrests and Weirs fell together so easily they could have known
each other forever.  Victoria and Lady Weir seemed to have called a
dignified truce and actually managed to trace a distant relationship of
no interest to anyone but a genealogist.  Their kinship lay mostly in
their experience as mothers.  Both had shared all the trials of their
position from measles to war wounds and compared these crises with
equal fervor, one might almost say, with competition.  Elizabeth was
willing to sit patiently through these reminiscences in the hope of
learning more about Jason, but Marissa usually sprang her to go with Em
on their peditions.

Jason was delivering Em up to them for a shopping trip when they
encountered a singular visitor in the Faitrest morning room.  Even
before Victoria introduced the brooding young man as Mr.  Bellecoeur,
Jason had the impression he was foreign, at least by descent.  There
was no trace of accent in his greeting, coldly formal to Jason and
graciously unbending to Emily.  But this was not surprising.  There
were scores of French aristocratic families dislodged by the revolution
and raising their children in England.  Em thrown into a flutter by
Bellecoeur's compliments as she took a seat beside Victoria. Bellecoeur
returned to stand behind Elizabeth's chair, one hand possessively on
its back.  He glared at Jason, who stayed to exchange a few remarks
with Victoria and Elizabeth.  Jason allowed the boy to darkly handsome,
but there was something in the curve of the lips that spoke of a
spoiled youth, and the arrogance of Bellecoeur's eyebrows told Jason
this was a lad who had never groveled facedown in the mud, ducking
shells.  Jason did not dislike Bellecoeur on sight, but he felt a
sudden and surprising contentment with his own life, a satisfaction
that made him smile crookedly.  Bellecoeur could not be more than a few
years younger than Jason himself, but Jason had done a thousand things
this spoiled child had never dreamed of.

Jason could not know that his smile had scorched Racine Bellecoeur as
though he had read the sold let mind.  He had seen that smug look time
and again, that or an outright sneer.  He was strangely torn in
allegiance.  The son of a French merchant and an English noblewoman, he
had never even visited France.  Yet he felt a belligerence toward her
conquerors that even he could not understand.  It was not that they
gloated.  These English soldiers seemed to take it for granted that
they would win.  Had he been able to do so, Race thought he might have
joined Napoleon's army merely to fly in the faces that seemed to say
they had his measure and found him wanting.  But the merest mention of
joining any army threw his mother into such straits that her doctor
said his actions might bring on her death.  So he fumed impotently at
Englishmen in general and young soldiers in particular if they seemed
likely to pay court to Elizabeth.

Jason shrugged and excused himself to sit down on a small sofa and chat
with Marissa.

"I see Race is glaring at you as baldly as I am glaring at him."

"I would not say you were glaring.  Yours is more a look of resigned
tolerance."

"Oh, worse for him.  He will never be able to handle that.  We should
be rid of him in a very few minutes," Marissa promised.

"He looks pretty firmly entrenched to me," Jason said speculatively.

"You slipped in under his guard.  He was visiting his mother in the
country for a few days.  It was a relief not to have him hanging
about."

"You don't like him," Jason concluded.

"He's so very French," she complained.

"As an army I have not much use for them, but individually they are not
usually so bad."

"You surprise me."

"I have seen remarkable acts of courage and mercy on both sides."

"I imagine you have also seen unspeakable atrocities--sorry, I
shouldn't have said that," Marissa apologized, seeing a shadow pass
over Jason's face.  "But you are right.  I should not condemn him
merely because of his heritage.  He is also rich, unbearably arrogant,
and he thinks he can have Elizabeth for the asking."  "I see.  I am
warned."  "But she likes you better."

"How could she?  Elizabeth scarcely knows me."  "Everyone likes you."
"Except her mother."

"You sensed that, did you?"

"I may be half-blind, but I am not stupid.  She is right to be wary of
a penniless soldier.  She would be mad not to have Bellecoeur for her
daughter if he is as rich as you say.".

"It's not Victoria who has to swallow him, but Elizabeth."

"She does not look to be finding him so unpalatable," Jason speculated
as he watched Elizabeth turn to smile at Race.

"Elizabeth would be polite to the devil himself.  It is her only
flaw---that she cannot bear to give.a set-down."

"You, on the other hand, would have no problem," Jason surmised.

"I could think of a dozen ways to dislodge him," Ma-rissa said
matter-of-factly.  "Ah, I have it!"  She got up abruptly and went to
talk to Bellecoeur.

Jason looked surprised but smiled.  Elizabeth got up to come and sit on
the sofa by him while Em and Lady Victoria conversed and Marissa
discomfited Bellecoeur.

"What do you suppose she is saying to him?"  Jason mused.

"Something shocking, depend upon it," Elizabeth confided as she sat
down.  "It's a wonder she doesn't get in more trouble, but being Lady
Falcrest the worst that is ever said of her is that she is hunting
mad."

"But she is delightful and so frank.  One does not even ook for that in
a woman."

"I like her, too.  Of all of the family she is the most direct but the
least likely to impose upon me."

"How do you mean?"

"Women don't have many choices to make in life.  If you even show a
spark of independence or original thought, you are condemned as
ungrateful."

"Even in your wonderful family?"

"Even in the best of families.  I should not talk so.  They at truly
care about me, but they are all eager to have me settled, being as I am
so old."

"Nonsense," Jason said with a Chuckle.  "You can't be much older than
Em."

"I am four and twenty."

"You don't look it," he said by way of compliment.

"That is part of my problem.  No one takes me seriously."

"I do."  Jason lost himself so completely in those upturned eyes he did
not even see Bellecoeur and Lady Victoria glaring at him.

"And to think I almost did not come to London," Jason whispered.

"Why did you come?"

"Era."  Jason had been leaning closer to her and he suddenly moved
back, realizing that they were not the only two people in the room.  He
flushed a little as he saw Bel-lecoeur's gaze sear him.  Yes, he had
come within a few inches of losing himself and kissing Elizabeth in
full view of everyone.  "And that puts me in mind of something," he
said, clearing his throat.  "Did you and Em write to each other?"

"Yes, I sent her my recipe for soup," Elizabeth said with a satisfied
little smile as she smoothed her dress.

"And perhaps a few hints on handling a recalcitrant brother who is
feeling sorry for himself."  "For a man you are not at all stupid."
Jason laughed.  "High praise indeed."

"I may have related some of my experiences when I was nursing Clive."

"I did wonder about Em's inventiveness.  Why did you want me to come
back to London?"

"Because I am stuck here.  In the ordinary way, I am not overfond of
London myself.  I would prefer to be in the country--anywhere in the
country.  I like Westbourne Place, William's estate, but it is rather
grand.  I particularly love staying at Burcombe Farm with Clive.  It's
a good feeling,

a safe feeling to wake up there."

"I felt safe at High Stand."

"As though nothing bad could happen to you there?"  "Yes.  It makes no
sense.  That is where my brother died, Tragedy can strike anywhere.
Still I think of it as my safe retreat, a redoubt, a place where no one
can get at me."

"I think C!I've felt that way about Burcombe Farm, Even when he was
better it was hard to get him to go about.  I feared he might never
leave again."

"So I am not alone in this impulse to crawl into a'defensible hole and
stay there, even a comfortable hole.

"No, I think it may be a common feeling among soldiers who have had too
many narrow escapes."

"I am doubly glad I came then," he said, getting again in her eyes.

"Even with having to ride herd on your sister.  She is ...
enterprising."

"Yes, and fun to watch even when I know what she is about."

"Do you think Em would like to see the fireworks tonight?"

"I promised to take her."

"Race," Elizabeth called across the room.  "Emily would like to see the
fireworks.  You have no objection to Em and Jason joining our party?"

Bellecoeur hesitated long enough for Jason to feel compelled to
intervene.

"I did promise to take Em, but I don't much care to go myself.  If she
promises to mind you," Jason said to Ma-rissa, "I have no qualms
sending her with you."

"No taste for such trifles when you have seen the real thing?"
Bellecoeur had recovered himself enough to jest.  "Such trifles do no
harm."

"Then join us by all means.  With so many ladies to look after, even I
may need some assistance."

To Elizabeth, Jason said, "Until tonight, troublemaker."  "I try."

If Jason had any doubts about his masculinity this episode laid them to
rest.  It was comforting to know he still desired a woman, even if it
was only one woman and even if she was unattainable.  But it was
distracting to have such an overwhelming hunger take him in Lady
Falcrest's morning room.  He thought it must have been Bellecoeur's
presence that stimulated him.  He would have to be very careful in the
future or he might terrify Elizabeth and show himself to be no better
than the performing bull his brother had disparaged.

Two carriages were enough to convey them to the park since William and
Clive did not care to go.  When Jason saw the tone of the crowd, he was
glad he was there to keep an eye on Em.  After all the munitions
expended in the wars, Jason was amazed there was enough black powder
left for such a display.  He found the blinding flashes and
stomach-thudding explosions strangely disquieting.  Of all of them he
should be the most used to such a racket.  He found it stimulating to
be sure, but it made him anxious.  He felt he should be doing
something--seeing to his guns, of course.  It made him jumpy to just
stand there.  When Em said she needed her cloak, he volunteered to
return to the carriage for it.  Elizabeth went with him to gather the
ladies' forgotten shawls.  He took her arm to help her up the grass
verge to the road just as a cacophony of explosions rent the air. Jason
turned to face the storm of light, choking back an order that
automatically rose to his lips.  Still so much a soldier.

"Jason, what is it?  You are crushing my hand," Elizabeth complained
with a laugh.

"God, Em, I'm sorry," he said, his heart pounding and the sweat running
down inside his shirt in spite of the chill.

"I'm Elizabeth and I should be mightily offended that you forgot who
you are with."

"Then I owe you two apologies."

"You don't like this, do you?  It brings it all back."  "It makes no
sense that it should bother me."

"Now I see why Clive didn't want to come," Elizabeth said, handing
Jason the required articles from the carriage.

"At least I haven't dived for a square of infantry yet,"

Jason joked as they walked back to their party.

"As though you would."

"I promise you I was never shy about seeking refuge there.  How do you
think I managed to last so long?"

"I meant you would never do so during the artillery barrage, though it
would be perfectly correct to seek cover while the cavalry was
charging."

"How do you come to know so much about it?"  "Clive, of course.  Jason,
where is Em?"

"Right over---oh, no, she's gone.  I had better look for her.  Do you
mind?"  Jason asked.

A search among the immediate party failed to turn up Em but did reveal
that Race was missing, as well.  "You had best stay here, Elizabeth.  I
don't want to drag you all over this damp ground."

"Besides, you can search faster by yourself."

Jason returned inside of ten minutes with a chastened Em and a
belligerently silent Bellecoeur.  Jason stayed only long enough to bid
the rest of the party good-night and lectured Em for the whole walk to
Green Street.

"Did you enjoy the fireworks, Em?"  Lord Weir asked from the library.

"Oh, yes, but Jason made me leave before they were over," Em said,
coming to kiss her father good-night.  "He said I was making a
spectacle of myself."

"I hope he is not getting as stuffy as Alton.  And what have you done
now?"  Lord Weir asked with mock disapproval.

"Only walked on a gentleman's arm and he was of our party."

"He led her away in the dark.  It was despicable of him."  "He did not
force himself on you, Em?"

"Whatever do you mean?  Mr.  Bellecoeur has the nicest manners."

"Perhaps Jason is just tired, then."

"Oh, Jason, I am sorry.  I should have thought of that."  Em came to
bestow a kiss on his cheek, as we!!.  After Em tripped upstairs Jason
said, "I wish she would think of that before she does something to give
me a blazing head ache.  She was not all that easy to find in the
dark."  "And were you alone with Elizabeth?"

"It's not the same thing.  Em is just a child."

"And this Bellecoeur--French?"

"Not really, but he has a Frenchman's arrogance.  I suspect he might be
dangerous if he chooses."

"Why would he?  As you say, Em is still a child."  Jason decided not to
tell his father of Bellecoeur's ill will toward himself.  "Innocence
would be no protection against such a man."

"Then we will keep an eye on Em."

"Yes, but I did not think it would be so hard."

Marissa invited Jason and Em to join them for a morning ride. Elizabeth
showed a sudden, unaccountable interest in going with them to Hyde
Park.  William and Marissa rode ahead with Em between them, and
Elizabeth and Jason brought up the rear.

Elizabeth looked at Jason and smiled.  "I'm glad there is someone else
in the world who does not mind plodding."

"The ride lasts longer if you go slow.  Do you ride every morning?"
Jason asked as casually as he could.

"Not usually.  Marissa and William like to go early, before anyone else
is up.  Besides, I hate to hold them back and I am afraid to try to
keep up with them."

"Because of Bess?"

"No, because of me.  I'm not afraid of falling, 0my of laming Bess.  I
don't see all that well at a distance."  Elizabeth turned her beautiful
blue eyes on Jason, but he could detect no flaw in them.

"What do you mean?"

"From here I can recognize you, of course, but I would not know that
was Marissa ahead of us except that I know she is there."

Jason whistled.  "So you would never see a hole in the ground, or a
ditch, and possibly not even a fence."

"Not if I came up on it fast.  I expect it is the fault of all the
close work I do."

"Does anyone know how dangerous it is for you to be riding?"  Jason
asked.

Elizabeth felt a little thrill of pleasure that he reco the chances she
took and that he cared.  "Marissa does.  That's why she always rides
ahead.  She shouts back is anything to watch out for."

"That is very like what Em did for me when I was riding blind."

"You must have a great deal of faith in her."  "Perhaps I simply did
not care if I fell.  I had so little to look forward to.  Now ... there
is the chance I can make my self useful to Father," he finished
lamely.

"That's not what you want, is it?"

"Well, I certainly cannot stay in the army, not in the artillery at any
rate.  I can't judge distance anymore and my eye plays tricks on me."

"Would you stay in if you could?"

"Riding here with you, I would say no.  I could never go back to that.
But if the need arose, if I was thrown in with other soldiers again, if
I heard them beat the advance, I would remember what I have been
trained to do, horrible though it may be."

"I hope the need never arises again.  It must have been very bad."

"Not so much while it was happening.  We were so desperately busy we
had no time to think when we were fighting.  The rest of the time we
were very often so drunk or exhausted we did not think about it then,
either.  What was harder was coming back to real life, especially the
inactivity.  It is hard to calm yourself down enough to take everyday
life seriously again."

"For Clive, too."

"Clive seemed fine even when I met him in Antwerp."  "He is better now,
but not his old self.  His wound hurt him terribly, but he was hurting
inside, too.  Nothing pleased him and I did try.  What happens to you,
Jason?"

"I'm not sure.  Many things.  You get older, for one thing-quite
suddenly.  You learn to watch death, to kill without feeling it so very
much.  There is a certain numbness that sets in.  I used to think it
was fatigue.  But it doesn't go away."

"Perhaps coming back, seeing your family, reawakens feelings.  At any
rate, it hurts," Elizabeth asserted.  "Of that I am sure."

"I thought I was just being foolishly fearful.  I didn't want to leave
High Stand, because I knew we were safe there and I was convinced
something awful would happen in London or on the way."

"And has it?"  Elizabeth teased.

"Far from it.  I met you.  How comes it that you are not spoiled?"

"What?"  Elizabeth demanded in genuine surprise.  "I'm sorry.  What a
stupid thing to say.  I was comparing you to Em and there is a world of
difference between you.  You actually think about things."

"I'm sure Em will in time.  I envy her that gaiety.  I think if my
father had lived I might have been spoiled.  Hardship does work
wonders."

"Hardship?"

"Living under William's roof has not always been easy.

He used to be able to demolish me with a single remark."  "William
seems such an affable fellow."

"Now he is.  Marissa has tamed him.  He used to have a wicked
temper."

"Then you have changed as much as he."

"Odd that only a stranger would realize that."

"Odd that you should tell me of your problem when you have not confided
in your brothers.  Why did you?"

"I'm not sure.  It just came out.  I suppose I did not want you to
think me a coward."

"I had no idea women even thought in those terms."

"Any woman willing to marry and have a child must think in those terms.
It is the single greatest risk we face."

"And men never even think of it," Jason said in wonder.  "Also I knew
you would understand."  "And not tell anyone."

"And not tell anyone," she repeated as though they had just taken a
vow.

"You do like to ride then."

"Better than anything."

"I plan to take Em every day that the weather is fit.  Shall I Stop by
for you?

"Yes, I would like that."

Elizabeth stole a sideways glance at Jason.  It was almost as though he
had two faces.  From the left he looked handsome and he did always keep
his left side to her.  But she suspected it was not so much from vanity
as to be able to hear and see her.  Someone on his right would have
thought him quite a desperate character.  And when you looked at him
straight on, especially when he smiled a little crookedly it was like
looking into a man's soul with him unconscious of it.  The beauty and
the darkness that made up the total man was all laid out before you.
She was like that, too, but no one knew it.

When they returned to the stables behind Falcrest House, Amy was
waiting for them in the small bit of yard.  She dragged the nursery
maid to the very edge of the grass to watch the horses.  Marissa's gray
stopped to nuzzle Amy's hair and blow on her neck.  The child pulled
her small shoulders up and giggled.  Even the great gray colt William
rode did no more than sniff her for identification.  When Amy looked
enviously at Jason's and Em's horses, Marissa took her hand and brought
her over to pet them.  Amy stroked Weaver's velvety nose with her tiny
hands.  On impulse she poked a finger up one of the horse's great
nostrils, causing it to snort mist all over her face.

"Amy!"  Marissa reprimanded as the child blinked and jumped in
surprise.  Then Amy started to giggle and they all broke into laughter.
But when she seemed inclined to repeat the trick with Hammer, Marissa
said, "Oh, no, you don't!"  and picked her up.

William took out his handkerchief and wiped the child's face.  "Sorry,
I never really know what she might do."

Chapter Six

As promised, Jason and Em called at Falcrest House the next day on
horseback, late enough to miss Marissa and William but too early to
encounter any morning callers.

On the way through Green Park they met two of the young officers from
Em's first party and she rode ahead between them.

"And I thought to have a peaceful ride," Jason said.  "Em must spend
all her free time trying to think of ways to worry me."

"She is a lively girl."

"But if it was not for her I might not have survived my blindness. Even
being tormented by her is a pleasant distraction from moribund
thoughts.  And she never treated me differently because of my wounds.
When she took me out riding blind she nearly gave Father heart failure.
But she right.  I could do it."

'I think she must be a joy to your mother, especially since she has
been ill."

"I had not thought of that.  I suppose Em must have had a good deal of
practice keeping an invalid amused."

"Your mother has improved greatly since coming to London.  Even I can
see that."

"She still does not sleep well, but she is gaining and becoming more
like her cranky old self."

"Dr.  Crayburn is doing the trick then?"

"Yes, he has her on carefully stepped down doses of laudanum.  It will
be weeks or longer until she is free of the stuff.  That wretched hired
nurse we had at home must have been measuring it with a soup ladle.
Father took charge of it himself so we can't have any more
overdoses."

"I'm glad.  I really like your mother.  She says whatever pops into her
head, so you can always depend on hearing the truth from her."

"Oh, often she twists it to make it worse than it is.  She loves to
shock people."

"She makes me laugh and that is not always easy."  When they returned
to Portman Square it was the most natural thing in the world for Em and
Jason to breakfast with the Falcrests.  With half the party still in
riding dress it almost seemed like a hunt breakfast.  Amy had intruded
into the breakfast parlor in a muslin dress and blue hair ribbons.  The
child wrangled the seat beside Jason and eventually migrated onto his
lap where she shared bites of ham from his plate, while trading him
bits of muffin.  But when she grabbed his cup of coffee, he said, "No,
no, that is hot,

and you would not like it anyway."

"Amy," William warned.

"Father, Jason is not being shareful."  They all laughed at her.

"Come, Amy, you have pestered Jason enough for one day," Marissa said
firmly, taking Amy onto her lap.

"You can have a sip of my tea instead," Elizabeth offered.

Clive saw Jason's admiration for Elizabeth written plainly on his face.
Of course, most men were dazzled by her.  Jason was at some pains,
Clive thought, to not embarrass Elizabeth with his attentions.  Like
most men, Jason probably felt unworthy of her.

C!I've was not sure how he felt about Jason and Elizabeth.  He liked
Jason a thousand times better than Bellecoeur, of course.  Jason was
even better than Charlie.  Charlie had

Besieged hinted something once about proposing to Elizabeth but nothing
had ever come of it.  Charlie may have been Clive's friend, but he was
a bit of a fool, buying his way into a cavalry regiment at the eleventh
hour with no training.  Still he must be found.

But Elizabeth had told him once, and very passionately, that she would
never marry a soldier.  He did not think Elizabeth would encourage
Jason to court her just out of kindness.  Else Jason might be hurt if
he discovered she regarded him only as a friend.  Clive thought he
should choose the only safe path, that of minding his own business.

Just as Jason and Em were saying their goodbyes and as Clive was on the
point of departing to seek out an engraver to do a likeness of Charlie,
Bellecoeur arrived for a morning visit.  He was taken aback at finding
so many people in the hall.  Jason smiled good-naturedly at him and got
a sneer in return; William and Clive were merely polite to him.  Clive
decided at that moment he could never swallow Bel-lecoeur as a
brother-in-law.  He would have to make a push to help Jason's cause
somehow.

Instead of excusing herself to change, as Marissa did, Elizabeth went
with Bellecoeur and her mother into the morning room.  Elizabeth did
not pick up her sewing as she normally would have done.  It did not
seem to go with her riding habit.  She merely seated herself and looked
attentively at Bellecoeur, expecting him to entertain her, and making
him feel a little like a trained dog.

"Lady Victoria," Bellecoeur acknowledged when they had settled
themselves.  "How delightful you look today."  "What a charming tongue
you have, sir."

"Forgive me for calling so early in the day.  It was the only time I
could think I would not find your morning room crawling with
uniforms.

"And Clive from home," Elizabeth said with an amused smile.

"Timing is everything," Bellecoeur agreed.

"I'm sure William would receive you," Victoria said.  "He pays no
attention to gossip."

"But he does scowl at me in a most alarming manner, or is he only
trying to scare me away from his young wife?  What is he afraid I will
say to her?"

"Most likely he is more afraid of what she might say to you," Elizabeth
said forthrightly.

Race knit his brows.  He very seldom lost the thread of conversation
but Elizabeth, for all her innocent looks, had the ability to confuse
him.  She never said what he expected, thus dashing his scripted
conversation to fiinders.  Perhaps that is why he was attracted to her.
That and the golden hair, the frank blue eyes.  Was he the only one who
saw the secret amusement lurking there?

Elizabeth was on the point of giggles over Race's wordless
contemplation of her when William entered, a sheaf of papers in his
hand.  "Elizabeth, I thought C!I've was going to take you driving."

"Yes, as soon as he gets back."

"I can take you if he does not have time--good morning, Bellecoeur,"
William said as he found the ledger he required and left the room.

"Speaking of scowls, they could hold a competition.  They really do not
like me.  Why?"  Race asked bluntly.

Victoria looked up in a frightened way and even Elizabeth hesitated.

"Is it because I am French?"  Bellecoeur guessed.  "But you are
not--not really," Elizabeth said in fairness.  "William has had a lot
on his mind lately, and as for Clive I think his leg still bothers him
more than he says.  It has nothing to do with you."

"If his leg bothers him, I can take you driving."

"Now that would make him angry, for it is one of the few pleasures left
to him."

The next day, Jason was to lunch at White's with Lord Weir and someone
from the War Office who might expedite their search for Charlie
Cairnbrooke through official channels.  While he waited for them he
stood by a window to scan the several papers available and, as always,
was having trouble focusing on the print.

"You look like a bird peering down a wormhole," Belle-coeur said in
amusement.

Jason laughed before he realized who it was, then shrugged.  "That's
very much what it looks like with fine print."

"Shall I read it to you?"  Bellecoeur wandered over, glass in hand.

"No need.  I think I have the gist of it.  Napoleon walks the deck of
the Bellerophon every day at five o'clock and ten thousand Englishmen
turn out in boats to gawk and cheer.  Even in defeat he holds so much
power!"

"You sound almost as though you admire the emperor."  "I do, but I
could still be court-martialed if I got caught acknowledging him
emperor of anything.  I also hate him," said Jason as he folded up the
paper.

"Are not the two incompatible?"  In his confusion Belle-coeur lost his
sneer and appeared almost good-natured to Jason.

"Not to a soldier.  Napoleon may be the greatest living general ....
"

Bellecoeur gave one of his charming smiles.  "Except for Wellington, of
course," Jason finished.

Bellecoeur frowned then.  "I forgot.  You all worship Wellington."

"No, he's human, but he gets the job done and he has enough heart to
regret what it costs.  Do you know, at one point, a gunner had Napoleon
and his staff in his sights and within range?  Wellington would not let
him fire.  Napoleon would not have had such scruples."

"You think not?"

"That is why Napoleon is such a great general.  He taught us to fight
like soldiers, not gentlemen.  Had Napoleon been killed early on we
could have saved thousands of lives both sides," Jason said broodingly.
Then he noted Belle-coeur's confusion.  "You see, I both admire and
hate Wellington, as well," Jason said with his twisted smile.

Bellecoeur blinked and laughed.  "Admiration, love, hate--they all get
rather confused at times of high emotion," Bellecoeur observed.

"Yes?"

"You know Elizabeth once said to me she could never marry a soldier."

"Because she could not bear to see him go off to war?"  Jason asked.

"No, because they are no better than murderers."

Jason flinched at the coldness of this.  "I do not think Elizabeth
meant that."

"She would never say such a thing to a man's face, of course.  She is
too kind and selfless.  So if she shows an interest in you--as Clive's
friend--I hope you do not mistake pity for love."

The words cut Jason like a knife and he did not know Elizabeth well
enough to doubt them.  He had only toyed with the idea of himself and
Elizabeth in his more pleasant daydreams.  Marissa's joking he did not
take seriously.  He had never considered there was any real possibility
of Elizabeth being interested in him as a husband.  Perhaps Belle-coeur
would react this way to any man thrust suddenly into close contact with
a woman he considered his own.

There was something else at work besides the shock he was feeling.
Bellecoeur was trying to manipulate him, cut at him where it would hurt
the most, all under the guise of friendly advice.  What came to Jason
as he stared at Bel-lecoeur's intricate cravat was an instinct not to
make any sudden moves.  Bellecoeur's eager face came into focus.  "You
may be right," Jason said slowly.

Bellecoeur smiled in relief and then relaxed.  It was then that Jason
realized that if he had laid any claim to Elizabeth, even the smallest
part of her affection, Bellecoeur would have bolted off to beg her hand
in marriage, like a troop of cavalry trying to win the top of a
contested hill--important only because someone else wants the ground.

There was a possibility Bellecoeur did not really love Elizabeth, just
the idea of possessing her.  Jason had given him breathing space.
Bellecoeur would not offer for Elizabeth yet, Jason thought--perhaps he
never intended to until Jason appeared.  If it was to be a waiting game
then that was how he would play it.  It was at that moment that he
began to wonder if Elizabeth's kindness could be turned to love.  It
would take time.

"You'll stop seeing her then?"  Beliecoeur broke into his thoughts.

"What?"

"I said, you will stop seeing her."

"That would cause remark with our families so close now.  But I have a
thousand errands to keep me out of her company."

"I want all of the best for Elizabeth."

"So do I," Jason agreed.

"We understand each other then," Bellecoeur said with a satisfied
smile.

"I understand you," Jason said noncommittally.

Just then Lord Weir walked over with Lord Hoiburn and Jason introduced
Bellecoeur, who took himself off as soon as politely possible.

"I thought you said Beliecoeur was a bad lot," Lord Weir inquired
later.

Jason just stared at him.

"I mean perhaps we should not discourage his courting of Emily."

"If I thought he had any serious interest in Em, I would pack her off
to the country tomorrow."

Lord Weir shrugged.

When they assigned Lord Weir and William Faicrest task of looking for
Charlie Cairnbrooke through official channels, it was with some
knowledge of what they encounter on the incoming ships and in the
hospitals.  It was agreed, without even a discussion, that soldiers
could manage this better than civilians.  As for Tony, Clive accepted
Jason's private assurance that he had the fortitude to handle anything.
Clive had known Tony for years, but only as Charlie's sedate older
brother.  He therefore would have sought to shield him from such
horrors as he would shield his own brother William, but Jason said
there was no need.

Clive almost regretted his resolve to help search for Charlie on his
next visit to the docks.  It reminded him again of how many ways a man
could be wounded and still survive.  That was the tragedy of it.  Men
had survived who had not wanted to.  You could see it in their eyes. He
could recall his own image staring back at him from a mirror full of
self-hate and disgust.  Yet now he felt full of energy and life.  He
would never be the same, but he had a future.  If only he could tell
the others it might be worth the struggle.

Vacant-eyed as many of them were, his hopeless quest never failed to
raise a spark of interest in them.  He had taken the miniature of
Charlie Cairnbrooke to a printer who had it sketched and engraved for a
handbill.  Each gazed at it carefully, if he could see, and regretted
having no news of Cairnbrooke.  Clive thanked them by passing around
the cigars he had on him and vowed to always carry a large supply.

Many were young men like himself, who would be unable to earn a living
and had little to look forward to.  It was not in Clive to pass them by
and for some reason, perhaps his limp, they broke their silence to
smoke and talk to him.  By all accounts Cairnbrooke's brigade had been
hit hard, but those few Clive encountered from it did not remember
seeing Charlie fall or hearing of his death.  One thought he had seen
him still on his feet as late as midafternoon on the eighteenth, with a
bloody bandage around his arm.  That was the most hopeful news Clive
had to report to Tony.

Armed with the handbills, Jason and Tony made the rounds of the
civilian hospitals again and fetched up at Chelsea late in the
afternoon.

"Now he looks familiar," an orderly at Chelsea said, "but it's hard to
tell from a sketch.  Wait.  I remember now, a young lad with a bad gash
on the head and his senses knocked loose--arm wound, as well.  But they
sent him around to his mother's house in Greenwich and she's taking
care of him now.  I will keep this though, in case he should turn up.
Don't get your hopes too high.  Mostly what we get are the worst cases.
Anyone who might be fit for service again would still be with his
regiment.  And if he was on his feet he would have written his
family."

The conditions they found at the hospitals, while they were far and
away better than those in the regimental hospitals and the general
hospitals abroad, still left much to be desired.  When men had to call
for water it was obvious the wards were understaffed.  Jason carried
the water bucket along himself as Tony was showing the handbill among
the patients.  They found two men from the 12th but neither of them
knew Cairnbrooke on sight.  They could only say that they had been
heavily engaged and there had been many casualties.  Jason asked what
he could bring them and they overwhelmingly voted for something to
smoke.  He passed around the cigars he carried with him and promised to
return the next day with more.  Evidently it was a habit many of them
had brought back from Spain and, as much as Lord Weir ranted against
it, it seemed to perk a man up more than a good meal or a tankard of
ale.

"You don't have to come back again, you know," Tony said.  "I can
handle this myself.  It must be hard for you to look on mutilations,
and the stench of putrefaction--"

"No, I want to come.  I have encountered far worse the battlefield.  As
for looking on them, they do not dis me.  For I know there is a man
there still to talk to things appear to be under control here, even
though surgeons and surgeons' mates looked bone weary.  And the men are
glad to see us coming."

"Perhaps they are glad to see you.  They know you for a soldier without
your uniform.  Your eye patch is your entry into their confidence.
Where they might turn a cold shoulder to me, an ignorant do-gooder,
they welcome a man who has shared their trials and pain."

"If being wounded was a club, it is not one where I would seek
membership."

"You don't understand.  I was the oldest.  I was better equipped for
something like this than Charlie.  He was just a boy."

"And you loved him."

"He was my brother.  I would have done anything for him."

"Then it was not envy you felt, like Geoffrey.  You wanted to go to war
so that Charlie would not---could not go."

"My father is not a wise man in many respects.  The most ill-advised
thing he ever did was to buy Charlie a commission."

"How is he taking it?"

"When he is sober he has his moments of regret, but that is not often
his state now."

"So you have him to deal with at home.  Regardless of what you imagine
your reception to be here, I think the men will talk to you as easily
as they do to me, especially if you bring them something to smoke."

"So you will leave off coming?"

"No, I want to come.  I suggest we alternate days.  It will give us
both more time, and perhaps not be quite so trying."

"There's something in what you say."

The fourth day the surgeon on duty, Dr.  Lake, met Jason at the door.
"There is a lad here I want you to see."

"You think you have found Cairnbrooke?"  Jason asked excitedly.

"No.  I am sure he is not Cairnbrooke, but I want you to talk to him
all the same."

"You think he has some news?"

"No, he has a lung wound.  He is dying by inches, and he knows it.  I
don't even know why they bothered sending him home.  I should not
impose on you, but he won't talk to anyone."

"And I cannot even offer him the comfort of a smoke."  The boy sat
staring into space.  He did not betray by so much as the flicker of an
eyelid that he heard the surgeon introduce Jason.  Jason got out the
picture anyway and showed it.  The boy looked and shook his head. Jason
did not know what to say, so he sat and stared at the same wall as the
lad.  Eventually the boy noticed him and asked, "Are you' still
here?"

"If thoughts were as powerful as cannon, that wall would be breached by
now."

The boy laughed weakly and unexpectedly, then coughed.  "What sort of
doctor are you to just sit here?"

"I'm not a doctor, just a soldier, or I was--a gunner."

"What are you doing here?  It cannot take you more than a minute to ask
after your friend."

"I don't know why I come.  I suppose I feel at home here."  '

The boy, Peter Wright, cast a dubious eye on him.  "What is it?  Don't
you believe me?"  Jason asked.  "Just wondering how you got out of
Bedlam."

"You guess close to the truth.  When I was blinded I very nearly did
come unhinged.  I had this plan to drown myself in the river.  But I'm
such a good swimmer, I was not sure if that would work.  Then I thought
about throwing myself out the window, but I could not be sure if that
would do the job."

"Couldn't you find a gun?"

"I had to make it look like an accident because of my family."

"I see your problem."

"And when I realized why that was so, I knew I couldn't do it."

"Tell me about them."

"My mother is ill.  She has nearly killed herself with this stuff."
Jason nodded toward the laudanum and water mixture in the untouched
glass.

"I won't take the stuff."

"Good for you.  There is my father--so stern--yet I suspect he is a
soft touch underneath.  We were never close before.  Perhaps I
understand him better now.  I have a sanctimonious older brother.  We
all pretend to tolerate him, but I would miss him if he were not there.
Then there is Em."

"Emily, my sister.  It was she who saved me.  Just a child, but wise
beyond her years.  What about your family?"

"I have none.  There is no one who will care one way or the other when
I am gone."

"Oh, yes there is.  Me."

In the days that followed, Jason learned what little there was to know
about Peter and he answered Peter's interminable questions about High
Stand and the Weirs.  In the short space of a week, Peter had lived
Jason's childhood very nearly as richly as Jason had.  Jason came to
realize how lucky he was to have a family and such a full life.  He was
amazed to think he had ever considered putting an end to it.

"What have you done to Wright?"  Dr.  Lake asked him when he caught up
with him,

"No harm, I hope.  Is something' wrong

"He's eating again and complaining of the food."

"That's a good sign.  Are you quite sure there is no hope for him?"

"Quite sure.  Oh, I know men have survived lung wounds, but the bullet
cut through an artery.  When the blood clots it makes him cough and
that opens the artery up again.  The most we can do is prolong it a bit
and, if he is like most of these fellows, he won't thank us for that."
"If you buy him even a few days, that is important."  "To him or to
you?"  "To both of us."

"I hope you are right."

"You will send for me if he worsens?"

"You want to be here?"

"I must.  Send me word at any hour.  Someone will know where I am at
all times."

"I will send for you, then."

Chapter Seven

"Any luck?"  Clive asked Jason as they met that evening in the foyer of
Falcrest House.  Tony was with him and they stepped out of the way of
the servants passing back and forth with wine, glasses and dishes of
flowers in preparation for what Marissa termed a small gathering.  To
Jason it looked like a full-scale ball.

"If I had any, you would have heard of it.  No word from your
inquiries?"

"Nothing encouraging.  William promised to go to Portsmouth since he
knows the town.  I can be to Colchester and back in two days, but I
really think I must go to Brussels," Clive concluded.

"You might pass Cairnbrooke's ship in the channel."  "True, but--"

"I'm coming with you," Tony said.  "I need to be doing something more.
Mother will be able to do without me if she knows what I am about."

"I can hold the fort here," Jason said confidently.  Victoria marched
down the stairs with a kind smile for all of them and a worded
Elizabeth in her wake.  "You would have told me if you had found him,"
Victoria said.

"There are still some ships on the way," Clive assured her.  "We will
keep looking."

"Tony, you must stay.  You look like you need cheering up."

"No, I would only depress everyone.  Besides, delivering bad news is
better than having Mother waiting up for me to no purpose."  Tony went
down the hall and out the back to the stables.

Clive took his mother's arm and Elizabeth took Jason aside.  "I do
wonder if this is good for any of you--making the rounds of those
hospitals and ships," she said tensely.  "I know what a state C!I've
was in when he came back from Spain."

"You tell me what he was like and I believe you, for I have been there
myseifi"

"It was my greatest fear that he would ... do away with himself.
Jason--what is it?"

"Nothing."

"Do not lie to me.  The thought crossed your mind, as well, didn't
it?"

"I admit, when I was blind--it gave me an escape, the planning of my
death."  He smiled crookedly at Elizabeth's horrified look.  "Don't
look so.  It was never more than a fiction, a way out in case life
became truly unbearable.  It could never be so with Em around.  I came
to realize that even though I did not count my life worth much, I would
be a gudgeon to kill myself after my family and Hollis had expended so
much effort to keep me alive."

"Still, the war is very close to you.  I could tell that when we were
watching the fireworks.  I don't think you should go to that hospital.
I know what it must be like.  If only I could go in your stead."

"How do you know?"  Jason scanned her face and behind the eyes,
glistening of tears, was a long-suffering look of endurance.

"I think of what C!I've was like and multiply that times hundreds--how
do you bear it?"

"Better than I thought I would.  I confess it was much more difficult
to screw up my courage to enter those doors than it was to go into any
battle.  I conjured up horrors the whole night before.  The reality was
not nearly so bad as I imagined.  Do not worry about me.  I have made
some friends there and I would miss not seeing them again.  Also..."

"What?"  Her lips parted over white teeth, distracting him from what he
meant to say.

"I know they should be nothing to me, but when I think that I might be
the only bright spot in their day, the only interesting thing to happen
to them in a very long day, that makes them important to me, as well. I
could no more stop going there now than I could stop seeing you."

Elizabeth was shocked and confused by the comparison but hid her
emotions with a skill learned during C!I've's long convalescence.  "I
don't understand, but I believe you.  I had better go greet these
people."

She tried to keep her concentration, but all she could think of was
what would happen if they did find Charlie.  She would have to admit
that she had encouraged a man to dangle after her when she was already
engaged to another.  After the battle, after the lists of dead had come
out, she had assumed she was still trapped by Charlie's proposal and
meant to reason with him when he got back.  Then, when the Cairnbrookes
had been notified that Charlie was missing, Elizabeth naturally assumed
he was dead.  She hated herself for the relief she felt.  For days she
considered herself no better than a murderess.  But to be married to
someone you did not love because of a promise wrung out of you under
such duress--she did not feel she deserved that, either.  Especially
not when there was Jason, whole again and more than a little interested
in her.

Now, Clive and Jason were helping Tony to find Charlie or, at least,
discover what had become of him.  Of course, if Charlie were wounded
somewhere she wanted him found, but she had already buried him in her
own mind.  She had already grieved for him and punished herself for her
deception even though she never wished Charlie any harm.

Now they resurrected him.  If they believed there was a chance Charlie
was alive, then he very well might be.  Elizabeth was much closer to
collapse than she had ever been during Clive's illness.

The fatigue and tension showed itself in a certain transparency to her
face.  Jason thought she looked as though she might burst into either
tears or laughter at no more than a word.  He could not understand why
she would be so overwrought even if she did know Charlie well.
Certainly she could not be that worried about him.  It must be Clive
she was thinking of.

It was only when Jason thought about what he had said that he realized
he had insulted, not complimented, Elizabeth.  He had as good as told
her his interest in the wounded came before her.  That would be true if
he were a doctor.  He had been toying with this idea for more than a
week now.  It would mean more schooling but, unlike his brother Geoff,
he had liked school.  And any woman he married, however infinitely he
loved her, would come second.

Best to banish any thoughts of Elizabeth then.  She deserved better.
Thus it was that he did not crowd around her with the other young men
who were filling her dance card.  If he had asked her she probably
would have danced with him, but would it have been out of pity as
Bellecoeur claimed?  When Jason compared himself to Bellecoeur he did
not find himself wanting, except in terms of physical appearance; and
he thought Elizabeth could see beyond that.  Jason's father was not
rolling in money, but the family was well enough off.  And if Lord Weir
really meant to use Jason as an estate manager, Jason's wife's position
would not be a mean one.  There was only the gnawing doubt that,
perhaps without knowing it, Bellecoeur had spoken the truth.

Jason did not undervalue himself, but Elizabeth had a way of humbling
men.  They made fools of themselves over her.  If it was adoration she
wanted, Jason could not give it.  From a face such as his, flowery
compliments would seem absurd.  But Jason had a feeling Elizabeth
considered all her suitors a little ridiculous.

Jason roused himself to rescue his sister from the attentions of a
tipsy guardsman.  He decided to better employ himself looking after Em
rather than searching for Elizabeth's face among the dancers.  Jason's
was not the only gaze that strayed to Elizabeth.  Bellecoeur stared
hungrily at her as he awaited his turn to dance with her.

"Another war herodhow tiresome," Race said to Elizabeth as a colonel
took himself off after finishing a dance with her.

Elizabeth did not express shock at his remark, but she did not smile,
either, just looked at him as though he were trying her patience.

"London is so cluttered with them, a civilian scarcely stands a chance
with the ladies."

"I am sure that does not hold you back.  Most of them are younger sons
with nothing to recommend them except their army records."

"Whereas I have my father's vast fortune to make me palatable, I see.
Is that why you tolerate my company?"

"No, but I am sure it cannot fail to weigh with Mother."  "Always so
frank.  Why do you receive me then?"  Elizabeth smiled and shook her
head.  "I do not know."  "You never fail to humble me."  "Why do you
come here then?"

"I do not know--yes I do.  You always surprise me.  Do you know how
rare that is among these simpering mamas and blushing chits who giggle
at everything I say?  It makes me invent things to shock you with.  Are
you never shocked?"

"Of course, but more often amused."

"At me?"  Race's voice rose.

"Now I have hurt you.  I need you to make me laugh and that is not such
an easy thing to do anymore," said Elizabeth, suddenly serious.

"Then my existence is not futile?"

Besieged

"I suppose I would miss you if I did not have you to bait me
anymore."

"Until it is time for our waltz I will leave with that crumb."

Race gave Elizabeth's hand up reluctantly as he went to pay his
respects to his hostess.  Marissa's acknowledgment was barely civil.

"You don't like me, do you?"  Race asked Marissa with disarming
abruptness.

"I'm surprised that you care what I think of you," she said with equal
candor.

"I don't.  I just wanted to hear you say it."

"Very well.  I do not like you ... for Elizabeth.  But that is
personal, so I keep it to myself."

"This is your house.  You could banish me from it."  "I was a guest in
this house before I was Lady Falcrest.  The debt of love I owe Victoria
would never permit me to interfere between her and Elizabeth."

"Yet you can't help wishing you could."

"I have a certain confidence in Elizabeth's clearheadedness and her
strength."

"Elizabeth is not like you.  She is a woman to be worshiped,
treasured."  f

Marissa laughed at this subtle cut.  "She won't thank you for putting
her on a pedestal."

"Until Captain Weir came she made no secret of her regard for me."

"Yes, she had me worried.  I almost thought she had given up on
love."

"I do love her."

"If you do, it will be the first time for you.  Your escapades are as
well-known to her as to me."

"Then her mother must know of them, as well, and she still approves of
me."

"You have this in your favor.  You are not a fortune hunter.  And you
know how much allowance people will make for your behavior because of
that--do not pout.  It ill becomes you."

"You have as good as said Victoria only swallows me for my fortune,"

"Forgive me.  I did not mean to insult you or Victoria, but it must be
a consideration with her.  She also finds you charming.  I suppose that
is as good a skill as any other in our society."

"Which you hold in contempt.  You will see.  I can change.  I can make
Elizabeth the happiest woman in the world."

"It is possible, I suppose.  But if you make her unhappy, there is no
telling what I might do."

"I thought you had such confidence in Elizabeth."  "She might kill you
with kindness.  Unfortunately, that is not much of a weapon to use
against you, and not much of a shield for herse!fi"

"Yes it is," Race whispered, never taking his eyes from Elizabeth's
smiling countenance as she whirled about the floor with her partner.

Marissa stared at him.  "Then I have misjudged you."  "No, you have
not."

Marissa smiled quite unexpectedly, her dark eyes flashing.

"Ah, I have made you laugh," Race said.  "That is rare.  What is it
that amuses you exactly?"

"Your audacity.  I smile at you as I would smile at a fox who was
trying to find a way into my henhouse, but I would shoot him all the
same."

"I shall have a care not to get near your henhouse then."  "You will
have a care not to get caught, at any rate."

Race laughed and walked off, and when he saw William scowling at him he
laughed even harder.

"What has amused Bellecoeur so much?"  William asked.

"Himself," Marissa answered.  "That is the sort of conceit he has."

Race claimed Elizabeth's hand and led her into the waltz.

"Marissa doesn't approve of me."

"She can hardly be alone in that.  What she really dislikes is that I
tolerate you."

"Tolerate!"  Race complained.

"Yes, I think she meant to say 'encourage' but hesitated to accuse me
of something so immodest."

'"Why do you tolerate me?  I thought I shocked you so at our first
encounter that you would flee from me interior."  '

"Because you had started a brawl?  I admit at seventeen

I might have shunned you, but not at twenty-four."

"It takes a great deal more to put you out of countenance than most
people would think.  Am I the only one who knows you are not such an
innocent?"

"No.  Marissa knows, for she has answered all my questions about such
things quite frankly.  In a way she made it possible for me to
understand you."

"I won't have it.  First I am tolerated.  Then I am under stood?  You
make me feel like a little boy, again."

"That is part of your charm."

"I am not a little boy.  I could take you here and now.  I

have done such a thing before."

"Yes, I heard about that.  But you were only nineteen and perhaps she
encouraged you too much," Elizabeth said forlornly.

"Do not make excuses for me."

"I hope you never lose it."  She forced herself to smile at him.

"What?"

"That boyish spirit--joy of life--whatever it is.  C!I've has lost it.
So have all the men who went off to fight."  Her eyes drifted to Jason.
"They are nearly all changed.  You are the only one untouched,
unspoiled by the war."

"No, not untouched," Race said fiercely.

being serious," scolded suddenly as she his hand more ti

"I not bear it.  You must make me laugh.  You are the only one who can
now."  Elizabeth's desperate tearfulness caught Race off guard.  He was
so unused to any show of emotion from her even his libertine's [cart
was touched.

"Come into the other salon and compose yourself," he advised gently.
Elizabeth followed him dutifully, sniffing and wishing desperately for
a handkerchief.

"I am sorry.  I scarcely ever cry."

"I saw you talking to Captain Weir," Race said, supplying her with his
handkerchief.  "What did he say to upset you so?"

"It was not just him.  We have lost so many.  I no more meet someone I
know, gaunt and strained--not young any-more--than I hear of some other
dear boy who was massacred.  There are so many that I will never see
again.  It is this being thrown back and forth from joy to despair four
or five times in an hour.  I truly do not know whether to laugh or
cry."

"I wish I could make you laugh.  I wish I could be your clown on
command, but I am too worried about you.  You need to get away from
here.  I want you and your mother to come on a visit to Talltrees.  I
have told my mother about you and she wants to meet you.  She will love
you as much as I do."

"I cannot leave now.  I do not know why I am being so silly.  I will be
better in thi: morning."

"I cannot let you go back in there.  They are torturing you, those
soldiers.  I want to take you away from here, protect you.  You need
never have another care in the world."

"But that is my job--caring.  I do not do anything else at all well.  I
must go back now.  I will never forget that you do have a heart under
all that banter.  I am sorry if I led you on."

"Elizabeth, don't go.  I cannot bear to let you go, I feel so starved
for the sight of you.  I cannot help myself."  He clutched her to him
in a passionate embrace that caught

Elizabeth off guard.

"Race, no!"

He ignored her repeated protests and averted face, so she pulled her
arm back and hit him hard in the face with palm of her hand the way
Marissa had taught her and heard with satisfaction the little gasp of
shock from Race as he loosened his hold and reeled back.

"Are you all right, Elizabeth?"  Jason asked from the doorway.  "I was
looking for Em."

Race scowled as he held his hand to his nose, from blood streamed
freely, and groped for a handkerchief longer had.

"Yes, I didn't mean--I don't know what came me."  '

"Apparently.  I shall be careful never to make you Here," Jason said,
pressing his handkerchief into hand.  "Hold your head back and we will
send a to you."

"I don't want any of your interference," Race Plained nasally.

"Actually I was thinking of the mess.  The decks fairly awash with your
claret."

"Do you think he will be all right?"  Elizabeth penitently as Jason led
her from the room.

"I doubt you broke it.  I should say he is much bruised in spirit."

"That was not very ladylike of me.  But I have needing to hit someone.
I'm only glad it was not--" ,

"Beliecoeur was not being much of a gentleman.  Do want to go back into
the ballroom or..."

"We had better.  Thank you."

"For what?  You seemed well able to take care of self."

"For not being shocked at my behavior.  Why smiling?"

14 I

"You have such unplumbed depths, Elizabeth.  I wonder if there is
anything you are not capable of handling."  "That is Marissa's
influence."  "Then it is a good one."

"Oh dear.  I was to have gone in to supper with Race.  How awkward.
Would you...?"

"I am at your disposal and I am delighted."

"Now that you see Clive has Em in tow," Elizabeth said as Marissa
walked up to them.

"It will be good practice for C!I've," Jason said.  "I have a feeling I
will be making flagrant use of him."

"Is anything amiss?"  Marissa asked.

"Why, am I flushed?"  Elizabeth asked almost in her normal voice.

"No, there is a splash of blood on your hem."

"Oh, that is Race's.  How bothersome.  I shall have to run upstairs for
a moment."

"Don't look at me."  Jason laughed as Marissa's eyes flew to his face.
"Bellecoeur is nursing a bloody nose in your morning room."

"Good for Elizabeth!  I suppose a dutiful hostess would check on
him."

"We sent a footman to him."

"I don't care about that.  I just don't want to miss this."

Marissa was disappointed for there was only james sponging at the
carpet.

"Someone spilled some wine, my lady."

"Oh, dear, too bad it is not just blood.  That is much easier to get
out."  She peered over James's shoulder.  He flushed and laughed.  "It
was Bellecoeur."  "So I heard.  Well worth the mess, I would say."

Elizabeth rejoined Jason at the door to the dining room, surprising
stares from several ladies and envious glances from more than one
officer.  Jason could not believe that such a simple thing as
Elizabeth's smile could make his heart soar.

"It's the eye patch I tell you.  Makes him look a damned rake," said
one tipsy fellow.

Jason pretended to ignore this, but Elizabeth smiled, so he joined in
her merry mood.  They talked through the meal of their childhoods and a
hundred unimportant things.  She only once in a while thought of
Charlie.  But what could she do?  Either he was dead or he was not.  If
he was alive she would convince him to release her from her promise.
That was all there was to it.  When she was with Jason everything
seemed so simple, so right.  She had no doubts about anything.

"You are very gay tonight," she said to him, "just when I thought you
no longer capable of laughing."

"I feel as though I have finally woken up."

"You have come through it much quicker than Clive then."

"Come through what?"

"I don't know what to call it--a hopelessness, a lack of purpose, a
lack of future.  He used to just sit in his room even when he was able
to get about.  Any attempt to rouse him brought on a terrible
tantrum."

"Hard to picture Clive like that."

"Hard not to be impatient with him, as well, but I had felt something
of that same black mood when my father died.  I spent all my sleeping
hours trying to dream him alive again, trying to change reality.  Every
morning when I awoke it took me awhile to remember, to realize he was
dead.  Then it hurt all over again.  But one morning I awoke from the
soundest sleep and I knew I would not see him again, would not expect
to see him again.  The flowers smelled so particularly good that
morning.  It was the strangest day.  Everything was new, as though I
had never really seen it before.  I was only ten, but I still remember
everything about that day."

"How long were you asleep, princess?"  Jason asked playfully.

"Only for a few weeks.  C!I've was like that for nearly a year.  I am
glad he has pulled himself back together, even if it took another war
to do it."

"I suspect you had a lot to do with his recovery, just as Em has pulled
me back from the brink, with your sound advice.  Now I am able to
confront my worst nightmares.  If I could do as I pleased now, I think
I would become a doctor.  I have done enough harm in my life.  I want
to help people now."

"Why not do it then?"

"It will take all my courage to broach that subject with my father.  He
only brought me up to town to..."  Jason glanced at Elizabeth
self-consciously.

"To what?"

"To marry me off.  He wants grandchildren and he wants them soon."  '

Elizabeth laughed.  "I do not see why that should interfere with your
becoming a doctor."

"It's not that he would consider it a dishonorable occupation.  But my
father is a little like Napoleon.  He plans everything out in infinite
detail.  The slightest rub puts him out of sorts, and independent
thought or action from one of us will bring down a towering rage upon
us."  "Sounds like William."

"William?  He is the gentlest man I know, and kind to help us in our
search for Cairnbrooke."

"You never met William before he married Marissa.  He is happy and
satisfied now, especially with Amy.  But Ma rissa still has the
capacity to throw him off-balance."

"I noticed."

"So who are you supposed to marry?"  Elizabeth asked impishly.

Jason choked a little on his wine.  "Miss Cecilia More-ford."

"Sounds frightening.  I don't believe I have ever met her.  What is she
like?"

"I have not a notion," Jason confessed, downing what remained in his
glass.  "We are invited for dinner tomorrow night."

"And will you obey your father in this?"

Jason stared at Elizabeth wistfully and a slow smile curled his lips.
"Never.  It will come as something of a shock to him, I fear."

"Best break it to him gently, then.  Perhaps she will not like you."

"Now there's a thought."

When Jason and Em were shown into the Falcrest morning room the next
day they found an impatient Bellecoeur already ensconced there talking
to Victoria.  It was mid-morning and later than they usually rode but
everyone had been up late because of the party.  Em went to talk to
Victoria and Race dragged Jason aside.

"If I ever hear one breath of what occurred here last night--"

"It is forgotten, I assure you," Jason said pleasantly.  "Pretty cool
about it."

"It's nothing to do with me," Jason said innocently; "That is
correct."

"But are you not rushing your fences a bit with Elizabeth?"

"When I need advice on lovemaking from a mangled soldier I--"

Marissa whisked into the room then, looking dashing in a scarlet riding
habit.

"Good morning, all.  I cannot believe I slept so late."  Marissa looked
at Race measuringly as she pulled on her gloves.  "Race, would you like
to ride with us?  I have a colt I can end you."

"I wish to speak to Elizabeth."

"Then you will have to ride with us.  She has already gone to the
stables with William.  It will take only a moment to saddle another
horse."

"Er--thank you."  Marissa and William led the expedition although
Marissa looked back occasionally to see how the other riders were
sorting themselves out.  Jason did not contest Race's right to ride
beside Elizabeth.  He dropped back beside Em so that he could not be
considered to be eavesdropping.

When Elizabeth saw Race, she scanned his face anxiously to assure
herself that she had not marked him.  Race was surprised at her
concern, so much so that he blundered through the glib apology he had
prepared.  Jason could not help but notice that this touched Elizabeth,
whereas an unrepentant or a self-assured Race might have met with a
cooler reception.

Maybe the fellow really was in love with 'her, but she had that effect
on most men.  They dropped whatever cool and bored guise they normally
wore when they encountered Elizabeth.  If Race ever realized that, he
might just win her.

Jason was trying to remember if Elizabeth still turned him into a
mumbling oaf, as well.  She always took his breath away and often left
him speechless.  Then she reanimated him.  The brooding soldier fled
and he could confide anything to her.  It was as though he had known
her all his life.  It was at those moments when he desired her for his
lifelong companion.

As they left the park Race was looking well satisfied with himself, but
Elizabeth was looking tired.  Marissa managed to reshuffle the pack and
get close to Jason.  William fell back to joke with Era.

"Do you want me to distract Race so you can talk to Elizabeth?"

"Could you?"  Jason asked in surprise.

"I have only to comment on his horsemanship."

"That would be unfair.  He looks toL have been born in the saddle."

"Yes, damn him.  I had no choice but to offer him a mount."

"I could see your dilemma.  Is courtesy so often at odds with your
inclination?"

"Yes, it is only the dread in William's eyes that usually restrains
me."

"Do not help me then.  I know what I am about."

"I hear and obey, Captain Weir."  Marissa touched her crop to her hat
in mock salute.  "I didn't think you needed any help."

The smile Race flashed Jason when he helped Elizabeth dismount and
escorted her toward the house was so benign Jason thought Bellecoeur
might not be a problem in future.

"Good afternoon, Dr.  Weir," Dr: Lake greeted Jason at the hospital.

"I wish you would not call me that," Jason said ruefully.  "Someone may
take you seriously."

"I am serious.  I don't know but that you do these men more good than
the lot of us."

"What?  With newspapers and cigars?"

"And you seem to know when someone is taking a turn for the worse or
better.  Not everyone has that sixth sense.  Certainly not many men
have the stomach for this business.  You can look on the most mangled
mess and still treat the man as a man.  Sometimes I feel like a
butcher."

"Do you ever regret becoming a surgeon?"

"Often but never for long.  What is your education?"  "Two years at
Oxford, mostly geometry and languages."

"That is a good grounding.  Why don't you continue your education here
in London at the College of Surgeons?"  "Would they accept me?"

"I should not be able to get you more than ten or twelve letters of
recommendation."

Jason laughed.

"You have thought of it then."

"It has crossed my mind."

"You could even retain your rank at half pay while you study.  The army
always needs surgeons, that is, if you are not soured on army life."

"No, I like the army.  It is the killing I have always abhorred."

"That part is over for you now.  Take my advice--study medicine."

"I'll think about it."

William and Marissa had ridden early the next day, and alone, as they
so often did.  This time Jason was almost glad to be joined by a group
of young officers.  With them to talk to Em, he could spend the entire
ride with Elizabeth.

Elizabeth smiled at the chattering group ahead of them.  "Em treats
them rather cavalierly."

"I think that's why they are attracted to her.  She does not dote on
any of them and they want her to."

"How did your dinner go?"  Elizabeth asked abruptly as though it had
been on her mind.  "That was rude of me.  It's none of my business."

"Oh, that?  A bit of a disaster, I'm afraid."  "Disaster?"  she asked
hopefully.

"The parents were nice enough and I really got on quite well with them.
Mother was in one of her moods.  Nothing seemed to please her.
Apparently she and Father have been arguing over this.  I must be dense
not to know what is going on.  I can't make out why Mother has taken
such a dislike to the idea, but I am glad.  Father always studies to
please her."

"What about Cecilia?  Not an antidote?"  "No, actually she is quite
lovely."  Elizabeth gave a rare frown.

Jason grinned.  "Cecy is a child, scarcely older than Em and much less
sure of herself.  I fear she has been rather sheltered and her parents
are pushing her toward marriage too early."

"Still not a bad match for her if there is a chance you will inherit
the title from your brother."

"Elizabeth!"  Jason said in exasperation.

"What?"

"She was terrified of me."

"You?"

"Put yourself in her place.  Dragooned into meeting a stranger.  I'm
sure they must have drummed my military credentials into her head and
warned her I might ask her to marry me.  The brant of the evening's
unpleasantness fell on her."

"I know you.  If the situation was unpleasant it was not of your
making."

"I did the best I could but, ugly as I am, I am not used to having
women cringe from me."

"You are not ugly."

"Well, I am not a young girl's vision of a handsome hero, but I do not
think it is only my looks that put her off."

"I know you can be charming when you make an effort and you are not
distracted by something else."

"I suspect it is because I am a soldier," he said, thinking of what
Race had said about Elizabeth's views on soldiers.  "Why would that
make her fear you?"

"The thought that I have killed.  Not every young girl who sits down to
dinner with a murderer can keep her appetite," he said, trying to shock
her into revealing her true feelings.

"Now you are talking nonsense," Elizabeth said impatiently.

"You have never seen the more violent side of me."

"You keep your head better than any man I know.  Even Race cannot
provoke you."

"No, not as yet," Jason said ominously, but he was pleased with
Elizabeth's reaction.  Whatever she had really said must have been
twisted by Race for his own purpose.

Elizabeth thought that Jason's problem with Cecy was that he almost
courted rejection.  He did not fear it precisely, but he expected it.
She thought that Race, or even herself, could say the most cruel thing
to him and he would not be at all surprised--hurt, but not surprised.
One expected a man to have some sort of pride.  She did not think
Jason's injuries made that much of a difference in how he felt about
himself.  Certainly they did not matter to her.  It was something
deeper ingrained that kept him from speaking.  Either that or he did
not really care for her, she thought disconsolately.

At twenty-four she was the closest thing to being on the shelf. Marissa
only laughed at her when she said this.  The prospect of not marrying
had not bothered her overmuch until she had met Jason.  She had such a
sense of belonging with him that not to make an attempt to interest him
would be stupid.  If only she were bold like Marissa she would simply
tell him how she felt.  But she did fear rejection.  It had never
happened to her before and she did not know if she could handle it.

She thought again about Jason's family.  Perhaps it was a little
far-fetched to think of him as being slighted when she could see how
much Lady Helen and Em doted on him.  Lord Weir, on the other hand,
though affable' enough, struck Elizabeth as a man who might be stern if
he chose.  If Jason had always lived in the shadow of a beloved elder
brother that could explain his reticence, but Geoffrey was dead now.

The habits of a lifetime die hard, she reminded herself.  If not for
Marissa, Elizabeth might not have realized that being sweet tempered
and biddable was not always the wisest course when your future hung in
the balance.  She would have liked to be as bold as her sister-in-law,
but such' speeches would seem as forced coming from her as flowery
chitchat coming from a man like Jason.  So, she and Jason continued to
speak in commonplaces on the way home, only occasionally or
accidentally revealing themselves.  How to get beyond that without the
man taking the initiative was a puzzle to Elizabeth.  Perhaps time and
patience were what was needed.  Elizabeth could not but feel that she
had run out of both.  London made her very weary, except when she was
with Jason.

Em cantered back to Falcrest House, almost losing them, and was
laughing with the lads in the stable yard when Jason and Elizabeth rode
in.  It was not until Jason had jumped down and was helping Elizabeth
to alight that he saw Bellecoeur holding the reins of a restless,
sweating bay.  Jason was pretty sure the horse had been hard ridden in
pursuit of their party.  It was unfortunate then that he had taken them
farther to the vast expanse of Richmond Park that day.  Bellecoeur had
also worked himself into a hot lather.  Even Elizabeth's smile could
not cool him down.

"You did not say you were coming with us today, Race," she said quite
coolly.

"Do you exclude me deliberately or is it just thoughtlessness on your
part?"  he shot at her.

Elizabeth took a step back, flushing, then she lifted her chin and
asked, "Which will rid us of your company?  You tell me!"

Race was struck speechless long enough for Elizabeth to flounce into
the house.  Jason himself was stunned into a low whistle of admiration
and Em could not help but giggle.

Race turned on Jason.  "You have lied to me!"

"How so?"  Jason asked, remounting.  "We have ridden nearly every
morning at this hour, which you would have known if you had bothered to
inquire."

"You might have told me."

"Actually, it never occurred to me you got up this early.  Of course,
you must allow for me being a bit dense--the head wound and all.
Neither did it occur to me that anyone could provoke Elizabeth to
anger."

"This is your fault."

"No, it is not.  But if I were you I would be more concerned about
getting back in Elizabeth's good graces than whose fault it is.  I may
be a bumbling soldier but I do know you owe her an apology.  It will
take a very pretty speech to turn the trick."

"I do not need your advice."

"I suppose you know best, then.  Come, Em, we must not keep the horses
standing."

The two rode as far as the street before Em gurgled over and Jason was
infected with her laughter.  "I don't think Elizabeth will really like
to have a pretty speech," Em said, dimpling.  "I think it will make her
even art grief

"I know," said Jason.  "That is why I suggested it."  This set Em off
again, and when the pair stumbled into the Weir morning room still
chuckling Lady Weir demanded to be told what was so funny.  Em
recounted the whole scene skillfully enough to set her mother laughing.
Jason thought Lady Weir was getting her old sparkle back.  There could
be no doubt she had gained some weight and there was more color in her
cheeks, but to see her actually laugh, whatever the cause, overjoyed
him.  After the previous night he had feared a relapse.  Now she seemed
stronger than ever.  He was just about to suggest a drive when William
Falcrest was shown in.

"Good morning, Lady Weir--Jason, I have to talk to you.  C!I've and
Tony are in Colchester or one of them would be able to help me."  He
was looking distracted and Jason led him into the small study.

"Is it Cairnbrooke?  Have you found him?"

"I'm not sure.  There is a young lad I have just helped them bring up
from the docks.  He is nameless and out of his senses a good deal of
the time."

"It is possible then," Jason said hopefully.  "Surely you know this
Charlie well enough to know if it is him."

"Jason, half his face is shot away," William said desperately.  "They
say it is a miracle he is still alive.  Long as I have known him I
cannot tell if it is Charlie Cairn brooke or not.  I cannot have Lady
Cairnbrooke go to him."  "Who else would know him except Tony or
Clive?"  "There's only Mother or Elizabeth."

Jason slumped against the mantel and exhaled, staring at his boots with
his one eye.  Sometimes the attempt to focus still made him half-dizzy.
He looked up at William finally with a sigh.  "I don't know your mother
very well, but I

think Elizabeth would want to see him."

"I don't want her to go there."

"I know, William.  But should we make that decision for her?  You must,
at least, tell her.  I think I know what she will say."

"Yes, so do I," William said in defeat.

"I will go with you."

Chapter Eight

By the time they returned to Falcrest House, William had composed
himself remarkably.  "I hate to get your hopes up, Elizabeth, but there
is a young soldier lying at Chelsea who could be Charlie.  I mean, they
do not know who he is."

Elizabeth stared at him openmouthed for a moment.

Then she exhaled and swallowed.  "He cannot say?"  "He is not in his
right senses and..."

"Does he look very bad then?"  she guessed.

"Very.  They do not expect him to live.  In either case,

since you are the only one who might know Charlie..."  "Let us go
now."

"I wish there was another way," William said desperately.

"If there is any chance, William, I must see him.  How can I live with
the thought he might have died alone, or worse, been left friendless
just because he cannot remember?"

They had covered the man's face as best they could and brought a chair
for Elizabeth to sit on.  She immediately picked up the man's hand and
looked at it before clasping it.  This seemed to rouse him.

Besieged

"How are you feeling?"  Elizabeth asked breathlessly.  "Mary?"  he
mumbled.

"He's not said that before," the orderly whispered.  "Would he know a
Mary?"  Jason asked.

Elizabeth shook her head but continued to hold the man's hand.

"Mary, you won't leave me."

"Not for a while yet," Elizabeth said.

William and Jason exchanged panicked glances, but the warder got out a
pen and paper.  "Ask him his name."  "Where do we live?"

"Why, Oxbridge, Mary, you know the house."  "Which house is it?"

"The one across from the Rose and Crown.  You know it, Mary.  We have
always lived there.  It has those flowers in front.  What are they,
Mary?  You know the pink and white ones.  They get so tall they block
the windows.  Father always threatens to chop them down but he never
does."  "What is father's name?"  "Saul Took.  You know that."  "Yes,
of course."

Elizabeth stayed so, talking soothingly to the man until he mumbled
himself to sleep.  Then she rose and asked if she might come again
tomorrow.

"There is no need.  You knew it was not Charlie as soon as he called
you Mary," William 'said, putting his arm around her.

"It is not Charlie's voice, or his hand, but--oh, William, it could
have been."

"But you stayed anyway," Jason said softly.

"And I am coming to see him tomorrow and the next day and the next
until someone finds this Mary and brings her to him," Elizabeth said
defiantly, brushing the tears from her eyes.

"Elizabeth!  Why?"  William begged.

"In the hope that someone would show as much compassion for Charlie or
for Jason if he were helpless and alone."

William stared at her in amazement and nodded.

"I will leave for Oxbridge tomorrow," Jason offered.  "This Mary may
not thank you for finding him for her.  And the man himself, if he knew
what state he was in, might rather die without seeing her," William
warned.

"I don't believe that.  Do you, Jason?"  Elizabeth asked
passionately.

"There was a time I might have agreed with William.  It is a decision
each person must make for themselves.  No one has the right to take
that choice away.  But I have found that I often underestimate
people."

"So do I," said William.

Jason went back to Portman Square with them and stayed with Elizabeth
while William went in search of Marissa.  Jason was still expecting her
to faint from reaction.  He saw a decanter on the side table, poured a
small quantity of brandy into a glass and handed it to Elizabeth.

"I wish we could have thought of another way.  It was either you or
wait for Tony and Clive to get back."

"You must stop this search," she said, swallowing the brandy.  "You are
torturing yourselves to no purpose.  It is my worry anyway--not
yours."

"Why should it be your worry?"  Jason asked.

Elizabeth stood up suddenly, looking deathly pale.  Jason went to her
for she really did seem faint.

"Because ... because I was engaged to Charlie.  No one knew."

She did go weak in the knees then and Jason helped her sit.  She
expected him to be angry but his face, so close to hers, showed only
grave concern and confusion.

"Is that why you want us to stop looking?"  he whispered.  "Are you
afraid we'll find him?"

Elizabeth drew in a breath and her face changed from shock to sudden
anger.  "How dare you!"  She pulled back from him.  "As though I would
put my happiness before a man's life, even ... even a man I don't
love."

Jason stared at her, suddenly realizing the torment she had been going
through the past two months.  "I'm sorry.  I lost my head.  I always
say the wrong thing.  You must know how clumsy soldiers are."

"It happened before I met you, right before he left for Belgium."

"If you didn't love him why did you accept his offer?"  "Because he
asked so desperately.  He said such things to me that I thought I would
be as good as a murderer not to agree."  '

"And you felt sorry for him."

"Yes, and there was no one else, then."  She looked down at her hands,
saw the empty glass and set it aside.

"I understand how he felt.  The memory of you gave me something to hang
on to, also.  But it was not well done of him to force you into an
engagement that way."

"I should have had the courage to tell him the truth, that I did not
love him."  Elizabeth stared past Jason, trying to remember why she had
caved in that day.

"But then you would have blamed yourself for his death.  You can't take
it all on, you know," Jason said, getting up tiredly.

"What?"

"The guilt of it all," he said, looking down into her eyes.  "It wasn't
Charlie's fault."

"Well, it certainly wasn't yours.  You don't deserve to suffer like
this."  He found himself holding her hand and not wanting to let go.

"We must find out for certain then if he is alive," she said
desperately.

"Yes, more than ever I am determined to continue our search."

"And if Charlie comes back I will break the engagement."

"If he walks through that door you might," Jason said sadly, releasing
her hand and looking at the door.  "But if he limps through that door,
or if he has to be carried through that door, you will not break your
word."  Elizabeth stared at the closed door in horror.

"You could never reject him, knowing he would think it was because of
his injuries."

"I am trapped!"  Elizabeth buried her face in her hands.  "So am I."

The door opened and they both jumped.  Marissa came and took Elizabeth
in her arms.  "You should have let me go with you.  Now I am going to
put you to bed for a while."

In the end it was William who insisted on going to Ox-bridge, since no
more ships were expected before Clive and Tony would have returned.  He
was back in two days with Mary and her crusty father-in-law, Saul Took.
Mary sat on the chair vacated by Elizabeth and her soft voice seemed to
revive the man.

"I can take anything but not knowing," his father said, "even if we was
to lose him now."

Elizabeth's next meeting with Jason was strained on her part for she
felt she had betrayed both Charlie and Jason.  But Jason's sympathetic
look set her mind at rest.  He did not hate her, and after no more than
a minute together, it was as though he had always known her problem.

She found herself seated on Jason's blind side at the dinner to which
she was the only Falcrest invited and to which Jason was the only Weir
invited.  It meant that people were beginning to link them in their
minds as a couple and she felt a surge of pride over this.  She did not
need to have Jason look at her to talk to him.  She knew every line of
his face by now.

"You grow impatient with all this banter and frivolity but you hide it
better than Clive," Elizabeth observed.

"And I thought I was being so gay."  Jason had been feeling a little
abashed that he had sat in Elizabeth's pocket so blatantly that their
names were now expectantly linked.  He saw faint hope of winning
Elizabeth and not because of her missing fiance.  He had few
expectations himself.  For the moment all he could hope was to comfort
her until the matter of Charlie Cairnbrooke was settled.

"At least you seem more amused than irritated when someone says
something stupid, and you make a quiet reply.  Clive has no compunction
about turning on his heel and walking away if someone says something
nonsensical about the war."

"I know.  I have seen him do it," Jason said with a chuckle.

"Perhaps you are just sweeter by nature than my brother."

"It's more a matter of still being stunned by it all.  It's over and we
won.  It very well could have been otherwise.  So I don't care very
much what anyone says.  At least I am here to be annoyed by it.  I
might be rotting on a Belgium battlefield or in a hospital somewhere. 
I don't know which would be worse."

Elizabeth's eyes flew to his face, fearfully.  "Like Charlie?"

"Sorry, I did not mean to upset you at dinner.  I should not have
spoken of it, but it weighs on me."

"If not for Clive we would not have realized what a close thing it was.
I think you should try to forget it now, get on with your life."

"I have tried, but what haunts me now is that I was saved against all
odds, simply because I had with me a servant who made it his business
to look after me.  Hundreds of others with much less serious wounds
died from infection, fever, even simply lack of water.  After the
battle they were left out in the fields all night at the mercy of
plunderers.  The rest of the men were too exhausted to think about
bringing in the wounded or too overwhelmed with the magnitude of it.
Never in the whole of the Spanish campaign was there such a massacre,"
he finished, finally looking at her.

Elizabeth's blue eyes clouded with worry.

"Sorry, again," he pleaded.  "I should leave off before I spoil the
meal for you."

"Not possible," she said, and smiled.  "I think we should just be glad
you were by luck spared."

"It was not luck, Elizabeth.  Even without Hollis, I would have been
treated first because I was an officer.  I never thought about how
unfair that is until I heard the toll of the dead.  Before, we were
only worried if we had enough cannon and shot.  What I never realized
was how pitifully short of surgeons we were and any sort of conveyances
for the wounded--I should be whipped for upsetting you."

She smiled, determined to no longer think of Charlie unless she had to.
Telling Jason and having him understand took half the burden away. "And
that's why you have decided to become a doctor."

"You do understand," Jason said.

"Yes, but I do not think you should lay this task on yourself through
guilt alone."

"Guilt?"

"If this is to be your life it must be what you want to do, not what
you imagine you ought to do."

Jason thought for a moment and then nodded.  "Yes, you are right, of
course."

"I have had some small experience with guilt."

He pressed her hand under the table.

"Usually my advice is thrown back in my face," she observed.

"Clive again?  I can hardly blame him for feeling ill-used.  Too many
doors have been closed in his face--riding, the army..."

"And his boyhood."

"I expect there is no help for that."

"Yes, there is.  When a man marries and has children of his own he
recaptures the joys of youth.  I have seen it with William."

Jason tried to read the meaning between her words.  He almost asked her
outright in front of forty witnesses if she could possibly consider
marrying him.  But he happened to glance up and caught sight of the
pair of them in the long mirror over the laden sideboard.  They made a
strange couple, the most beautiful woman in the room, next to the
ugliest man.  He must not fool himself again.  He must not remember
himself the way he was, but acknowledge the present as he faced the
stranger he saw every day in the mirror.  And he must realize that
Elizabeth was only being kind and making conversation.

Jason's silence made Elizabeth worry that she had misread him.  Perhaps
her nudge had been too bold.  Damn the scruples that kept a woman from
blurting out how she felt, the way a man would.

They were conversing easily enough by the time the ladies retired to
refresh themselves.  There was to be a formal dance afterward with more
guests arriving even as the gentlemen passed the port and cigars. Jason
arrived in the ballroom to see Bellecoeur glowering at Elizabeth, who
was ignoring him as she chatted gaily to one of Clive's friends. Jason
wondered why Bellecoeur did not advance on her or why she seemed not to
notice him.  Then it occurred to Jason that, at the distance of the
length of the ballroom, Elizabeth could not possibly recognize anyone. 
He walked over to her then.  She smiled at him in relief.

"You really were not ignoring Beliecoeur, were you?"  "Is he here?  I
did not even see him."

"That's him in blue superfine by the column.  You should be able to
hear him grinding his teeth from here."

"Oh dear."  Elizabeth flushed deliciously and fanned herself.  "I do
hate these vast crushes without Marissa by me to tell me who everyone
is.  It's no good squinting.  It doesn't help at all.  At least I can
always pick you out."

"Ha.  I am not even going to ask what I like look to you, a spotted
dog, I imagine."

Elizabeth laughed before she admonished him with her fan.

"That tears it," Jason said.  Bellecoeur had stormed out, leaving a
trail of shocked glances and shrugs.

"I get out of all patience with him sometimes.  He behaves like nothing
so much as a little boy."

"And you were just bemoaning my lost childhood."  "I don't like boys
that immature."

Jason's grin softened into a smile and he looked intently at her. There
it was again.  Either a soft hint or his yearning playing tricks on
him.

"I have saved you two dances, both waltzes, so we won't be in danger of
losing each other in the set."

"What a little conspirator.  Do you consider me a safe partner?  I did
not dance that much when I could see.  What if I run you into a column
or something?"

"I trust you."  With that she gave herself up to her first partner with
a forced smile.

The Falcrest party had arrived in time to witness Belle-coeur's exit.

"You approve of this fellow Bellecoeur for Elizabeth?"  Clive asked his
mother.  "He has a very short fuse."

"He is very wealthy, or he will be when his mother dies, and he is
quite charming when not provoked."

"It is said that he has run up monstrous gaming debts, that his uncle
is embarrassed to be seen in the clubs because of Race."

"His mother is as generous when it comes to such matters as William was
with you, if you remember."

"I was a boy then.  Bellecoeur must be nearer twenty-five."

"That is still young."

"By the time I was that age I had put such nonsense behind me.  And to
be making a scene like that only because Elizabeth is talking to
someone else..."

"She was talking to Captain Weir.  Racine has every reason to resent
his intrusion on Elizabeth's good nature."

"But I like Jason.  Besides Bellecoeur is so ... French."  "I knew you
were going to say that.  He is only French on his father's side.  His
mother was Lady Amelia Crevas-son before she married Bellecoeur and
that has been a British name for hundreds of years.  Besides, he was
educated in England.  So far as I know he has never set foot in
France."

"He is just not to my taste."

"Well, you are not marrying him."

"Neither are you, madam, and I will thank you not to force Elizabeth
into a match that could be a disaster.".

With that he went to his sister's side after the first set and made her
jump by asking her bluntly, "This fellow Bellecoeur, will you have
him?"

"C!I've, you take my breath away, but it is a moot point.  He has not
offered for me."

"But do you favor him?"

"I ... don't really know.  He is amusing but infuriating.  I suppose it
would not be a dull marriage," Elizabeth said wryly, thinking of Race's
most recent display.

"He is handsome enough and wealthy, I suppose."  "You know that would
not weigh with me."  "Do you love Bellecoeur?"

Elizabeth was taken aback by the blunt question.  "No.  It does not
matter, Clive.  He is unlikely to offer for me.  If he told his mother
my situation she would think me some grasping fortune hunter.  Perhaps
that is what I would be.  If I married Race it might only be for the
security he would provide for me and Mother."

"Elizabeth!  You must not let that influence you.  I can take care of
Mother now."  Clive waited for Elizabeth to speak.  He was not used to
her being so evasive, but they had never spoken of Elizabeth's
conquests before in anything but jest.  "Beliecoeur is not looking for
a rich wife," he prodded.

"You know his reputation, Clive, as well as I do.  Once he has
conquered a woman he gets bored and moves on.  To fall in love with him
is fatal."  More excuses.  Could she not even tell C!I've the truth?

"I think that is why you fascinate him.  You do not anguish over him
and you laugh at his extravagances."  "Marissa taught me that."

"You don't mean to have him then?"

"If I was sure he could change, if I could strip off all his mannerisms
and get to the real man, I think I could like him quite well.  But I am
not the woman to do it."

"You may, at least, teach him a salutary lesson."

"Does this mean you are going to go on being rude to him?"  she asked
with a twinkle.

"I have been as polite as I am able and I shall continue to do so as
long as you welcome him.  I was just wondering..."

"About Jason?"  she prompted.

"How did you know what I was going to say?"  "Subtlety is not your
strong suit."

"I know you said you would never marry a soldier, but Jason is the
closest thing to leaving the army and he is just such a great
fellow."

"For your information I do care about him.  Well, who could not?  He is
as easy to talk to as you or William.  There is no subterfuge about
him.  He is just there and I can read his mind like a book."

"He is not stupid."

"No, he is open and I like that.  I feel I can say anything to him,
that I have known him forever."

"Oh, God, don't tell me you like him as a brother."

"Did he ask you to have this conversation with me'?"  Elizabeth asked
sharply.

"On my honor, he did not."

"No, that would be very unlike him.  I wish I knew his feelings."

"Good Lord.  Don't you two talk?"

"Yes, but not about this, and it seems so indelicate for the woman to
make the first move."

"Oh, well, if all Jason needs is a push..."

"Clive!"  Elizabeth warned.  "I don't want to frighten him off."

"Very well," Clive promised, and went away chuckling at the thought of
Jason afraid of anything.

Race lay in wait in the hallway, knowing that sooner or later, like any
other lady, Elizabeth would have to ascend the stairs to refresh
herself.  When she came back down he said, "I must speak to you."  He
urgently grasped her hand and led her into the right wing of the
entranceway.  The lone footman paced in the other direction.

"Race, I am sorry I missed you, but I truly did not see you for the
crowd."

Jason, who was waiting for Elizabeth just inside the ballroom, heard
this remark and started toward the hallway, wondering if he was just
going to inflame Race more.  He had been dodging an open confrontation
with the man since he really had no claim on Elizabeth, but when he
heard her strangled cry he rounded the corner.  and tore Race away from
her, throwing the drunken man down in his haste to assure Elizabeth's
safety.  Her bruised mouth and tearstained face lit some fire in him
that caused him to pull Race up by the neck cloth and bear him backward
to the wall with his hands about his throat.

"Stop, Jason, stop.  I'm all right.  You must not kill him!"  Elizabeth
pleaded, pulling at his coat.  It was a full minute before Elizabeth's
desperate cries penetrated to his rational mind.

Jason froze and loosened his grip.  Race slid down onto the floor,
coughing.  Jason looked in astonishment at his hands.  They seemed
incredibly far away from the rest of him, a trick his eye often played
on him.  Elizabeth, too, looked distant.  Marissa came to her.  He was
aware of that much as he turned and stumbled out the door.  He managed
to strike a light for his cigar even with his shaking hands.  He paced
up and down in front of the house, smoking until he could compose
himself enough to go and look for his sister.  He had felt it again,
that surge of cold rage that left his body jolting with the thudding of
his heart, that left him wanting to murder someone.  He began to
believe he would never be free of it.  By the time he went back inside
there was no sign of the altercation, at least no body lying in the
anteroom.  He did feel several stares fall upon him, but people
frequently did stare at him for no other reason than the eye patch.  Em
said nothing but did not object to the suggestion of leaving early.
From that he inferred that the incident had been talked of.

Em lay abed late the next day so Jason rode to Falcrest House himself.
He hoped for a word alone with Elizabeth, to apologize and to try to
explain what had happened the night before.  He was in such a brown
study, with his eye still blurry from a nearly sleepless night, that he
very nearly handed his mount's reins over to Bellecoeur, who was just
leading his horse out of the stable.  He had not expected to find him
here guarding the back door like a Cerberus.

"So you are not dead," Jason said a little stupidly as he backed a
pace.

"She won't see me, damn you.  This is all your fault."  "My fault?"

"How can she bear to have you touch her?"  Race asked passionately.

"Perhaps it is because I do not maul her as you do."

"I don't, or I don't mean to."  Race sent Jason a tortured look.  "It's
only that she looks at me so."

"Like her heart is breaking for you."

"Yes, she cannot possibly look ht you that same way."  "Elizabeth has a
big heart."

"It is only a look of pity, then, in your case."

Jason shrugged.  Sometimes he thought it was more, but he did not want
to provoke Race again..

"She loves me, I tell you.  She cannot possibly love you."

"I begin to think no one can."

"Then leave her alone."

"You really do love her, don't you?"  Jason blurted out, thrown
off-balance by Race's sincerity.

"I would do anything for her.  I would kill for her."  "Would you kill
me for her?"  "She has only to ask."

"Now I understand why she saved you.  I very nearly choked the life out
of you and I did it as though I were killing a stray cur and, I
suppose, because you are French."  Race's chin went up and he glared at
Jason defiantly.

"I would have been sorry later, of course, but if not for Elizabeth it
would have been too late."

"That is why she sent me away--to keep us separated.  She could hardly
get rid of you.  She must tolerate you for her brother's sake."

Race's passion was more convincing than his words, but it led Jason to
wonder if there was a core of truth in what he was saying.

"I could give her everything," Race claimed.  "Would you change?  Would
you be faithful to her?"  "How could I possibly hurt her?"

"And yet you have.  I have seen the marks on her wrists."

"At least I am in no danger of killing her."

"What are you saying?"  Jason backed a pace.

"You have not seen yourself in a murderous rage.  What if you were to
wake from some nightmare with your hands around Elizabeth's throat?"

"No!"  Jason pushed the idea from him, but once voiced, he could not
deny that the very fear Race spoke of had occurred to him.  He had fled
from the idea.  Now Race was forcing him to confront it.

When Race saw Jason weakening he pushed his advantage.  "It is
possible.  It would take so much less to kill Elizabeth than me.  It
would be over in an instant."

"Let me be!"  Jason flung himself onto his horse and fled the
courtyard.  For once his ride was neither plodding nor peaceful.  When
he came to himself he was somewhere near Morefields and poor Weaver was
grunting and drenched in sweat.  He got off and walked the valiant
beast until he was cool, then searched for a drink of water for the
tired animal.  He walked a good bit of the way home, not just to rest
his horse, but because he did not feel like facing anything.  Had it
been possible to ride the whole way to High Stand he might have taken
refuge there.  But there was no place he could hide from this, his
greatest fear, that in his deepest mind he was less than human.  He
crawled into the house like a whipped dog in no mood to speak to
anyone.

It was unfortunate that his father chose that particular time to call
him into his study and ask about his love life.  "How goes it with Miss
Moreford?"

"Who?"  Jason asked vaguely, the question not having registered.

"Cecy Moreford.  I thought you promised to call on her."  "It does not
go at all.  She is a child and terrified of this face and what is
behind it.  I cannot say that I blame her.

You had better forget the whole idea."

"Nonsense.  She will come around."

"But I will not!"  It was the first time Jason had raised his voice to
his father.  "I am sorry.  I'm just very tired."  He got up to leave.

"It won't do, you know," Lord Weir said sagely.

"What?"  Jason turned to ask with his hand on the doorknob.

"You and Elizabeth Falcrest.  Her mother is set on her marrying
Bellecoeur."

"Even after last night?"

"What happened last night?"

"Being so particularly well informed, I am surprised you don't know."

Lord Weir's head came up at the sharpness of Jason's answer.  "Do you
imagine I have set spies on you?  Em told me you are in love with
Elizabeth.  What happened last night?"

Jason stared out the window.  "Bellecoeur assaulted her and I stopped
him ... with a little more force that was necessary considering how
drunk he was."

"It does not sound as though Victoria Falcrest will be in charity with
either one of you, if Elizabeth was caught in the middle of a brawl.
Where are you going now?"  "To see Mother and then to the hospital."

"You have no business spending the better part of the day at that
place.  We have done everything we can to find the man.  You are
turning this into an obsession."

Jason stared at his father, wondering if he was right.  He did not feel
competent to judge his own actions any longer.  "I am sorry.  I cannot
talk about it now."

"Jason, you look so tired," Lord Weir pleaded.  "I know that it's not
good for you to be spending so much time in that place."

"I thought you were in favor of confronting one's fears."  Jason
searched his pocket for something to smoke, then belatedly remembered
how his father detested smoking.  He lit it anyway thinking it might
distract Lord Weir.

"I didn't expect you to march into hell every day of the week."

"Why should it bother me?  It's not as though I am looking at my own
handiwork," Jason said coldly as he paced the room.  "You know, I do
not think I could march against cannon.  I know too well what they can
do."

"Jason, don't!"

"I have done a lot of damage, Father," he said heavily with the barest
tremor in his voice.  "Enough to fill that hospital I visit.  Certainly
enough to fill a graveyard."

"Jason!  Stop it!"

Jason looked vaguely at Lord Weir.  "What were we talking about?"

"You not going to the hospital anymore.  You are never going to find
Cairnbrooke.  His brother will just have to accept that."

"That is not why I go there.  I have learned so much--how to deal with
fever, how to pull a ligature on an amputation, how to know when a
wound has turned septic, how to know when a man is dying, and how to
deal with that."

"You should not have to.  You have done enough."  "Yes, I have done
quite enough."  Jason opened the long window and tossed the stub of his
cigar into the alley.  "If I had it to do over, I would be a doctor.  I
could have done that."

"You must not.  You have suffered enough.  What have I done, bringing
you here?"

"Given me a chance to face my worst nightmares and I have discovered
that I can."

Chapter Nine

N t having screwed up the courage to apologize to the Falcrests yet,
Jason spent an ambivalent and sleepless night.  On the' one hand he had
no right to express an interest in Elizabeth, knowing how ineligible he
was.  On the other, her interest in him was unmistakable, or so he
thought.  Once they discovered what had happened to Charlie he must
either declare himself and find out how she really felt about him or
break with her.  He lay awake trying to think of a way to ask her but
he was no speech maker like Bel-lecoeur; he was just a clumsy
soldier.

Jason took himself for an early morning walk and without thinking about
it his steps turned in the direction of Portman Square.  He was jolted
from his buzzy-headed rev~ erie by the sight of Elizabeth and the
nursery maid playing ball with Amy on the grass in the middle of the
small park.  Involuntarily he smiled.

He fetched the ball Amy missed and threw it to her.  Amy was delighted
with the addition to the game.  When this palled, the nursery maid, who
was young enough to play herself, took Amy to step on all the stones
the whole way around the bit of park.  This must have been a daily
game, for Amy hopped away like a piece on a chessboard.

"You like children and they like you, at least, Amy does," Elizabeth
said to him.

"I never gave them much thought until Amy crossed my path.  Is she
unique, the little charmer?"

"No, more outspoken than most, but that is Marissa's fault."

"I do like her.  If only one could be sure one's own children would be
so sweet, one might consider becoming a parent with less foreboding."

Elizabeth peeked up at Jason from under the brim of her hat.  "I think
our children would never cause us grief."  She heard Jason's sharp
intake of breath.  "There is always the chance of a throwback, of
course."

He looked at her, trying to read her meaning in her face.

"I would not be human," she said, "not to have daydreamed about the
possibility."

"Is it a possibility--that you could love me?"

"It is a certainty," she confessed.

"Even after what I did to Race?"  Jason took her hand, then glanced
self-consciously at the multitude of windows looking out on the
square.

"Especially after that.  I'm sure of myself now.  I just didn't know
how you felt."

"I love you.  You could not have said more than a dozen words to me
before I fell in love with you."

"If you love me that is all that matters.  I will think of something to
tell Charlie if he comes back."

"No, it is all the more reason it would be wrong of me to offer you
marriage when I have so little else to offer."  "Your whole life--is
that a little thing?"

"I cannot even offer you that," Jason said darkly.  "I mean to become a
doctor, whatever it takes.  I cannot ask you to wait for that."

"Why wait?  I have an income of my own.  It is not great but I do not
spend the half of it."

"I was going to stay in service and live on my half pay until I become
an army surgeon.  Eventually I hope to get a medical degree."

"Where would you be sent?"

"India, most likely."

"I have always wanted to go there."  "Are you serious?"  "Of course."

"Your mother certainly does not approve of me."  "Let me worry about
Mother."

"Elizabeth!  You make everything seem so possible.  But when I am away
from you, when I look at the facts without the magic of your presence I
feel like a fool to want you."

"What do you mean?"  she asked playfully.  "That I have bewitched
you?"

"That-came out wrong.  I mean I am amazed to think that you could love
me."

"But why?"

"I do not love myself very much and I do not deserve you.  I'm sure no
one believes I do."

"Mother is the only one.  Everyone else dotes on you.  And I no longer
mind what Mother says.  In this matter I will think for myself
finally.

What is it?"

"You have the strangest effect on me.  You make me fly in the face of
reason and believe in happy endings.  But when I leave you, I will hear
Father's so sensible advice and lose all heart again."

"There is an easy solution to that."

"What?"  Jason asked as Amy ran to him and he picked her up.

"Don't leave me."

"I must sometime," Jason said, laughing.

"Not until I have fed you.  You look like you have not eaten for
days."

"It's so hard to remember."

When Jason joined the Falcrests for breakfast he discovered that
William and Clive were as affable as ever and considered him a hero for
rescuing Elizabeth.  Victoria did not gainsay them, but merely said it
would never have happened if Race had not had too much to drink.

"I'm sure you are right ma'am," Jason agreed.

Jason glided home with his head in the clouds.  His mercurial changes
in mood had begun to worry Hollis until Em informed him that Jason was
in love.  That did much to allay Hollis's fears, especially as Jason
seemed to be on an upswing that carried him through the day.  He even
whistled as he readied himself for the dance at Falcrest House that
night.

"These parties and balls, they are a trial to you still, are they not?"
Elizabeth asked as she joined Jason in the empty refreshment salon. Now
that she was sure of his feelings she had the warmest belief that all
would come out right in the end.

"Not if I am to see you," he said, taking in her pale pink muslin and
tiny rosebuds.  "Do I look so ill at ease?"

"Not at all.  You are the very figure of romance--brooding over some
unspoken tragedy, your eye patch a symbol of your dark and violent
past.  Em only regrets that you do not still wear your uniform."

"What are you talking about?"  Jason laughed.  "How like you not to
know."  "What?"

"Is it possible you don't realize how dashing you would look in scarlet
and gold?"

"I don't feel very dashing, just a little tired.  Besides, my uniform
is blue."

"I know that, but they do not."

"They?"

"Mrs.  Braidwood--the widow, Mary Luton, Dora Bat-tis on and Lady
Vonne."  Elizabeth had run out of fingers to enumerate Jason's
conquests on one hand and was just turning over the other.

"And Lady Vonne is a married woman.  She does have me in a quake."

"And then there is me."

"And then there is you."  Jason put his glass down carefully and took
Elizabeth's hand.  "Even if I were the sort of fellow with a turn for
words, flirtation as you put it, my tongue would still falter in my
mouth to offer a woman like you such Spanish coin.  You deserve better
and all I can offer is the truth.  I love you, along with half the
army, I suppose, but I love you too much to make you unhappy."

"Not possible."  She touched his face against her will and he bent to
kiss her as though drawn to her by a spell.  He was oblivious to where
he was and to the one or two people who entered the salon only to beat
a hasty retreat.

"How is it possible to love me too well?"  she whispered.

"I wish I could hold out some hope for us but I would be fooling you
and myself.  The only thing I have is my honesty.  My prospects are not
great.  That you know.  After all the kindness your family has shown I
would be a terrible ingrate to offer for you."  With an effort he tore
his gaze away from her face.  "The music is starting.  We had better
go."

"I suppose so," Elizabeth said in disappointment as he led her into the
ballroom.

"Who is that?"  Jason asked of the woman who clung to Be!!ecoeur's arm
so possessively.

"His mother," said Elizabeth, wrinkling her nose.  "They came to call
on us this afternoon."

"So Race has brought her up to town to try to convince you to marry
him."

"I don't think so, although that may have been what he intended.  He
wanted to spirit Mother and me off to Tall-trees, wherever that is, for
a few weeks so that we could get to know his mother.  When I refused
that scheme, he may have asked her to come have a look at me in
person."

"Surely he can make up his own mind about such a thing."

"Actually, I suspect she has dragged herself from her bed of pain to
prevent Race throwing himself away on a designing hussy."

Jason laughed at this and Race looked up from settling his mother on a
sofa in a corner of the ballroom not far from where Lady Weir and Em
were similarly ensconced.  Lady Amelia looked to be in perfect health
to Jason, but Race treated her like a fragile porcelain vase that might
crack at the slightest bump.

"You should have seen Marissa trying to wriggle out of inviting her
tonight.  Race was asked weeks ago, of course, but after what happened
we did not think he would have the nerve to come."

"If Marissa could not refuse her, she must be a woman of some
perversity."

"Marissa might have managed it if Mother had not been there to make her
feel guilty.  I had better greet them."

Elizabeth went to talk to the Bellecoeurs, but there her attentiveness
ended.  She moved after a few minutes to sit with Lady Weir.  Jason
watched Lady Amelia with fascination as he would observe enemy troop
movements.

She whispered to her son, then scanned the room with veiled lids.  Her
eyes rested on Jason in a calculating way that left him cold.  She
dismissed Jason as she inclined her head to catch what Race was
saying.

"You observe Bellecoeur has had to bring up reinforcements," Marissa
said at Jason's elbow.

"Formidable," Jason acknowledged, chuckling.

Race glanced at them with furrowed brows, but whether he overheard or
merely guessed at the conversation Jason could not tell.

"Who is the fellow standing behind the sofa?"  Jason asked.  "I thought
Bellecoeur's father was dead."

"Her personal physician, Dr.  Marchand," Marissa informed him.  "She
never goes anywhere without him.  If we are lucky we may get to see one
of her swoons.  She is renowned for them."

"You cannot be looking forward to that as a treat?"

"I just wish!"  Marissa spat out the words.  "I shall dash a vase of
flower water over her."

Jason laughed at her for he did not doubt that she would do exactly
that.  To distract Marissa he asked her to dance.  He could not help
noticing throughout the dancing that many people stopped to chat with
his mother and very few with Lady Amelia.  If it was a competition,
Lady Weir was obviously the more lively companion.

Lady Victoria went to sit with Mrs.  Bellecoeur and looked speakingly
at her daughter more than once to dislodge her from Lady Weir's side.
Elizabeth provokingly brought Lady Weir over to talk to Mrs.
Bellecoeur.  This freed Victoria to make her rounds but did not please
her as much as it should.  Race looked at Elizabeth with ridiculous
gratitude and was even content to get the older women lemonade.

Elizabeth thought Race was on the point of asking her to dance more
than once, and she had half expected this, but each time, his mother
addressed some remark to him to draw him back into her discussion of
medical problems with Lady Weir.  Race was looking bored and
uncomfortable and Elizabeth could not help feeling sympathy for him.
She did not like the way Mrs.  Bellecoeur scrutinized her.  She almost
hoped the older woman did find her wanting in some way.  Elizabeth
would not have had her for a mother-in-law if her soul depended on
it.

Even though Jason had been minding Em, he did not think that Race had
escaped his mother's tethers at all that evening.  Suddenly he saw his
own mother beckoning to him.  "That tears it," he said to himself.

Race could not help but observe that Jason casually finished his wine
and put the glass down before he obeyed his mother's summons.

"Convince this child--" Lady Weir touched Elizabeth's arm "--that she
should be waltzing rather than dancing attendance on me."

"I would, but now that she has freed Em, I shall be hard-pressed to
look after her."

"Your father is standing about.  He can watch Em for once."

"Tell me," Jason pleaded.  "Are you two deliberately trying to provoke
Bellecoeur and his mama or is this instinctive?"

Elizabeth looked innocently at Jason but Lady Weir laughed.  "If you
ever hover around me like that fop flaps around his mother I shall beat
you with my fan."

"I am fairly wa Red Mother.  It is a sight, though, Belle-coeur cowed
by his mama.  I had not thought anyone could curb him."

"She spoiled him as a child.  She has Rined him as a man.  Had she died
ten years ago as she claims she nearly did, he might have made
something of himself."  "Mother, where did you lear all this?"

"I talked to her, silly.  I suspect 'dear Racine' only acts worse out
of her company because she still has him in leading strings."

"The tyranny of guilt is a powerful crippler and one you have never
chosen to employ," Jason said, kissing her hand.

Elizabeth looked at them both fondly.

"It is the tool of a weak woman," Lady Weir said, "and I am not weak,
or hardly ever.  I am as impatient with my illness as everyone else."

"You don't think, then, that you would like your own personal
physician?"

"Keep teasing me and I will rap your knuckles soundly," Lady Weir wa
Red "That butcher will be the death of her if he cups her as often as
she claims.  Oh, dear, it is time to go in to supper," Lady Weir
announced to Jason's relief.  "Where is John?"

"In the card room.  Shall I get him for you or will you let me take you
in?"

"I know full well you would like to lead Elizabeth in."

"I may have only one eye, ma'am, but I have two perfectly good arms."

Elizabeth 'laughed.  "Only since you see Em safely bestowed on Clive,
else we would both have to go in to supper alone."

"Yes, Jason," his mother said as he raised her to her feet.  "I must
tell you when you are looking for your sister you have the aspect of a
hunter, fearful that his untrained young bitch has gotten lost in the
plantation.  I almost expect you to start calling "Here, Em.  Here, Em'
and whistling for her."

Elizabeth giggled again at this image.

"You would be surprised how often I am reduced to such desperate
straits," Jason agreed.  "I shall always be grateful to Clive for
sharing my burden."

"Would you be grateful if he married your sister?"  his mother asked.

"I would not be unhappy," Jason said, somewhat taken aback.  He had
been so consumed in his own problems he had not noticed how much he had
been throwing Em and Clive together.  "Fortunately I have nothing to do
with that.  I have only to keep her from falling into anyone else's
hands."

As 'the evening rolled on, Race's looks had progressed from suspicion
to hostility.  Jason had been so buoyed up by the discovery of
Elizabeth's love for him that he had forgotten the problem of Race. Now
it came unpleasantly to mind again along with all of Race's arguments
against Jason's suit.  At each laugh Race glared around him, and Jason
could not help feeling an increasing anxiety that Race would not be
able to avoid an explosion since people actually were laughing at
him.

After the meal Race broke away from his mother long enough to claim his
dance with Elizabeth.  She had promised him one to keep peace, but she
regretted it immediately.  He took her to task so viciously for
flaunting Jason in front of them that she ran from the dance floor
partway through the piece, leaving Race looking ridiculous.  To Jason's
relief Race stalked off in the other direction.

Elizabeth sought the cool night air of the side portico out of the
sight of the coachmen loitering in the street.  Her gaiety had become
forced long before she had been treated to Race's tantrum.  There
seemed to be an added strain to an entertainment at Falcrest House. She
could not claim a headache and go home.  She could not even disappear
upstairs without being missed and sent for.

Elizabeth could not understand how she could be so much in love and
still so miserable.  She feared all her hopes would come to nothing if
Jason's father continued to disapprove of her.  Jason was far too
obedient for his own good.  Their only course was for Jason to stay in
the army and become a surgeon.  The hardships of foreign service did
not frighten her.  She would welcome them compared to being thrown at
Race's head.

Then there was Charlie.  What would her mother say if told of that
mess?  And if Charlie was alive it would be her duty to marry him. This
last reflection broke her spirit and she wept.

When Jason finally found Elizabeth on the side portico opening off the
ballroom, she was dismembering one of the flowers from her posy.

"I'm glad I didn't give you that."

A desperate little laugh escaped her.  "Why do I let Race provoke me?"
Elizabeth turned to him.  "No one else can make me so angry.  Does he
do the same to you?"

"Without knowing it, he sometimes tells me the truth about myself."

"No, he lies.  I know how persuasive he can be.  You must not listen to
him," Elizabeth pleaded.

"I can't help it," Jason said.  "He gets inside my mind like the voice
of my own conscience.  He says the things I have not dared to think."

"What things?"  Elizabeth asked, sniffing her tears away.

"That I am a murderer."

"No!  He plants those evil thoughts."  "Once there, they are hard to
deny."  "What does he say about me?"

"That I don't deserve you, that I would make you un happy, even that I
would be a danger to you."

"He lies."

"He is guessing, perhaps, but what if he is right?"

"That is my risk to take," said Elizabeth, clutching Jason's sleeve in
her small fist.  "And it is worth it."

She threw herself into his arms and he held her tenderly, whispering
into her hair, "The cruelest thing he says is that he loves you and he
means it."

"He may think he means it.  He only wants me, like a spoiled child.  It
is because I have refused that he persists."  "But he is so
passionate."

"Perhaps he believes it himself.  Shall I tell you what my life would
be like if I gave in to him?"

"No," Jason said, but Elizabeth ignored him.

"We might be happy for a few months, but he would soon grow bored with
my constancy.  He would start playing games, flirting, courting other
women.  I would pretend for a time that all was normal.  I might fool
myself longer than he could fool me.  But it would come to the same
thing in the end, two unhappy people.  At least, I would be unhappy,
for I would be trapped.  I imagine he would do as he pleased.  It would
be worse than being married to poor Charlie."

"How can you know all this?"

"I know him and others like him.  People do not change their basic
nature, or not very often.  That is why I still see you as you must
have been before--idealistic, dutiful, even playful.  That is all still
part of you.  With the passing years the war will be less and less real
to you."

"It has changed my life.  There is no denying that."

"For the better," Elizabeth insisted, looking up at him.  "You have a
direction now you might never have found otherwise.  You are going to
be a doctor.  I'm not sure how, or how long it will take, but I know
you will succeed in that.  That's the life I want to share."

"It may be a hard one," Jason warned.

"Hardship builds stronger bonds.  Too much luxury can rot a
marriage."

"You are a strange girl."

"And you pay the strangest compliments, sir."

"I meant how can you be so beautiful and so wise?"

"Alas, that is my curse, never to be taken seriously because of my
face.  Time will take care of that."

"But I will always see you like this."  Jason kissed her reverently.
Elizabeth responded with a passion intense enough to ignite his own.
After he had satisfied himself with her mouth, he kissed away her tears
and was working his way down her neck when he stopped himself and stood
up, swaying a little.

"Where can we go?"  he whispered.

"I don't know," Elizabeth said, clinging to him.  "The stable, I
suppose."

"Dear girl.  I meant until we both compose ourselves."  "Oh," Elizabeth
said with disappointment.  She flushed when she realized she would have
gone anywhere with him, given herself to him without a thought of
regret.

"Although I do wish we had the freedom to satisfy ourselves so
immediately," Jason added.

"I'm just not thinking," Elizabeth said, putting a hand to her head.

"It's a good thing one of us is.  I had better take you inside while I
still have half my wits about me."

"Not yet.  I can't face them."

Jason hesitated.  "You could do a lot better than me."  "Your mother
gave me some sound advice."  "What?"

"She said, "Hold out for love, Elizabeth.  Don't let them push you into
a marriage of convenience.  You will be unhappy forever.  I should
know.""

"She said that to you?"  Jason asked, shaking his head in disbeliefi

"Yes, and she said it as though it were a lesson learned by bitter
experience."

"But Father loves her.  I know he does.  Perhaps he doesn't demonstrate
it the way some men do."

"Whether he does or not, she doesn't believe it."  "Yes, the reality
for her is what she believes.  That must be what is at the root of her
illness, then.  I always thought their marriage was not the smoothest.
I did not realize how unhappy she was."

He kissed her again, more suspense fully because of his obvious effort
to control himselfi She did not close her eyes when she met his lips.
The embrace seemed to Jason to make up for his entire life of pain and
hardship.  He could not know that Elizabeth was thinking the same
thing, that she was saying a prayer of gratitude for whatever angel
sent Jason to her.  They paused and stood smiling at each other, still
locked together.  Elizabeth rested her head on his chest and he nuzzled
the pale softness of her hair.

"I might have known," Race said, bursting up the outside steps.  "And
they worry about my being alone with her.  Wait until they find out
what you have been up to."

"At least I did not get a bloody nose for my impudence."  '

"You ugly brute!  What right have you to impose yourself on
Elizabeth?"

"He is not imposing," Elizabeth said.  Race leapt at Jason like an
enraged dog.

Jason hesitated because of their previous encounter.  Race got in a
blow to his face.  Jason hit him then, an uppercut to the chest that
should have knocked the wind out of Race for some minutes.  Jason
staggered back, reaching for the sobbing Elizabeth, and Race came up on
his blind side.  Elizabeth screamed.  Jason neither saw nor heard the
blow that knocked his head against the pillar.  To Elizabeth it seemed
he embraced the cold marble and sank slowly be side it until he fell
backward into her arms.  To Jason it was a dizzying downward spiral
into darkness.

"You have killed him!"  Elizabeth wailed, trying to is-ten for Jason's
breathing.

"I have only knocked him out."

"For him that might be enough.  You must get help, Race.  Please, I am
begging you."

"Oh, very well," Race agreed like a recalcitrant child.  Elizabeth
tried to calm herself and think what to do.  It was some minutes before
a footman came and she sent him to fetch Clive.  By the time Jason was
carried upstairs and was stretched out on a bed he had revived to the
point of calling for Hollis.  "I can't hear the guns anymore.  Is it
over, Hollis?  Did we win?"

"We won," Clive said, stepping to the bedside.  "It's worth everything
if we won," Jason mumbled.  "Yes, it is," Clive agreed.

"Marshall's dead and Barnes and Hanley.  I'm not sure about Short.  He
was wounded, at least."

Elizabeth stared in horror at Jason's desperate struggle within himself
but pushed Marissa away when she tried to lead her from the room.

"I saw Molten get it.  How many others, Hollis?  They can't all be
dead.  Hollis?"

"Hollis is not here right now," Clive said gently, grasping Jason's
shoulder and pushing him down onto the bed.  "Not dead!"

"No, Hollis is fine.  We are sending for him now."

Jason subsided then, not into unconsciousness but into a fitful
sleep.

"He can't see us.  He does not even know us."  Elizabeth spoke her
worst fears, tears streaming down her face.

"William will have the doctor here in no time," Clive reassured her.
"There is little we can do until then."

They could not make Elizabeth leave his side.  Was she being punished
still for her broken promise to Charlie?  No, the fault for this
disaster was her stupidity.  She had been so happy to know Jason loved
her in return, she had not calculated the effect of their mutual joy on
Race.  Now Jason was paying for her carelessness.

Chapter Ten

Marissa could only be glad the nursery maid had been able to restrain
Amy, by whatever means, from running up and down the stairs.  Mafissa
had ordered their butler and footmen not to admit any visitors that day
except the Weirs.  Victoria took exception to this and precipitated a
small domestic crisis, the first that had occurred between the two
women.  Though mistress of the house, Marissa had up until now deferred
to Victoria.

"And what about tomorrow?"  Victoria asked as they stood facing each
other in the downstairs hall.

"We will wait and see how Jason is tomorrow," Marissa asserted.

"Racine certainly regrets what happened.  He has even paid to have
straw thrown down in the square so as not to have Jason's sleep
disturbed by the traffic."

"I only hope Jason lives to have his sleep disturbed."  William came
down the stairs reluctantly and followed them into breakfast.  He hated
scenes, especially at mealtime.

"I don't like Bellecoeur, I tell you," said Marissa, stamping her small
foot as she wrenched out the chair and flopped down upon it.  "The
fellow is insufferable."

"I do not think so at all," Victoria claimed.  "He is very much a
gentleman except when taunted by Jason."

Besieged

Marissa looked expectantly to her husband for support.  "What matters
is how Elizabeth feels about him now," William said, "and whether
Jason, when he wakes, means to press charges, which I doubt."  William
opened the paper and began his breakfast.

Although somewhat awed by the events at the Faicrest ball, Victoria did
not give up her defence of Race.  "Elizabeth will straighten Racine
out.  Once they are married he won't drink like that."

"He has not the excuse of drunkenness to protect him from censure for
last night," said Marissa.  "He attacked Jason in a cold rage and may
have killed him."

"Just as Jason attacked Race last week," Victoria reminded her.

"Race was molesting your daughter, or had you forgotten."?"

"That is exactly what Jason was doing."

"With one important difference," Marissa said.  "Elizabeth was in
Jason's arms willingly.  She loves Jason."

"Marissa, if you had ever been dependent on someone for every crumb you
eat, you would not go maundering on about love."

"What a bouncer!  William is devoted to you.  I cannot believe he has
ever made you feel like a pensioner.  And in my case, what would I do
without you?  I still have no idea how to go on."  This tribute lost
some of its weight, delivered, as it was, almost in a shout.

"Still, it is William's house, William's money."  William flinched
behind his paper.

"But we are a family," Marissa said passionately.  "I'm not simply
being mercenary.  I want Elizabeth to have a house of her own, not be
just a daughter-in-law at High Stand."

"But Lady Weir dotes on her.  Nothing would make her happier than to
have Elizabeth live there."

"Such arrangements can wear thin after a time."

"Not where there is love."  Marissa went to Victoria and embraced
her.

"You won't get round me that way, child," Victoria said huskily.  "Do I
not always know what is best to do?"  "Up until now, yes."

"Racine loves Elizabeth.  I have no doubt of that."

"It is not a question of who loves Elizabeth the most.  What is
important is what Elizabeth feels."  Marissa looked at her husband
expectantly.

William sighed and put his paper down.

"It may be that Elizabeth has not decided yet.  So I can hardly forbid
Bellecoeur the house unless she says she wants rid of him."

"Even after he almost killed Jason?"  Marissa asked.  "And we do not
know if he has blinded him again.  To have suffered through everything
Jason has had to endure and then have his head bashed in at our house
is too much."

William pushed his plate aside at this unappetizing picture.  "What do
you want me to do?  Do you want me to forbid Bellecoeur the house?"

"That's not fair," Victoria complained.

"It's no good, either," Marissa agreed.  "It would only cause more
trouble between Race and Jason.  I was thinking perhaps you could just
hint Race away."

"Hint him away?"  Victoria demanded.  "The best catch in London?"

"I am not interfering in this," William said firmly.

"But Race would make Elizabeth unhappy and I don't want that.  Do you
imagine he would be faithful to her?"

"No, I do not," William said, earning himself a glare from Victoria.
"Still, she must send him away, not you or me."

"You are all against him except me," said Victoria.

"I think that is what makes Elizabeth feel sorry for Race and not
repulse him," said Marissa.  "That is the only thing Race has going for
him, Elizabeth's pity."

"The very idea.  More likely it is Jason she feels sorry for."

"Are you blind to all Race's faults?"  Marissa demanded.  "If he has
been indulged by his mother for too long..."  "Race knows exactly what
to say to you to make you think him a misunderstood boy.  I suppose
there is some truth in that view of him.  But you can have no more idea
how dangerous he is than he does himself.  What if it is Elizabeth he
strikes next time?"  Marissa asked.

"He would never do such a thing.  He cherishes her."  "He should be
horsewhipped," Marissa asserted.

"I agree, but he is past the point where that will do him any good,"
contributed William.  "I fear he may be hopeless and that is a terrible
thing to say of one so young."

"A really stunning rejection from Elizabeth would do him a world of
good," Marissa decided as she drummed her fingers on the table.

"Marissa, don't you dare," warned Victoria.

"I hate these games," William said to Marissa, "especially when you get
that look in your eyes.  When did it get to be so complicated?"

"It always was.  You just did not realize it," Marissa informed him.
"You were quite a catch yourself six years ago.  Don't you remember how
jealous I made you that season to try to get you to admit your love for
me?"

"I remember being in agonies of jealousy.  I did not know it was
deliberate," William said, looking at his young wife in some awe.

"I am sorry, William, but it all turned out for the best."

"But Elizabeth is different.  Not so able to manage for herself as you
are," Victoria said.

"No?  You think less of her than Race if you believe that," Marissa
said.  "But you are right about one thing.  I must do nothing.  This is
Elizabeth's game.  Unless she comes to me for help, I cannot move
against Bellecoeur," Madssa said like a beleaguered general.

"William, where are you going?"  Victoria demanded.

"Since neither of you appear to really know Elizabeth's mind in this, I
am going to talk to Elizabeth."

"Thank God," Marissa said.

"I hope you don't mean to bully her," Victoria warned.

William tapped softly on the door of the bedroom where they had aid
Jason, then let himself in.  Elizabeth was sitting by the window
sewing, or holding her sewing.  She had just been taking herself to
task again for causing the previous night's altercation and the tears
had barely dried on her face.  Before, when she had to pull Jason off
Race, she had been shaken.  Now with Jason lying unconscious she
finally realized the extent of Race's passion and possessiveness.  She
must do nothing else to alarm Race or make him jealous.  This firm
resolve made her better able to face her brother.

"How is he?"  William asked.

"Resting easier, I think."

"We have not had much of a chance to talk lately and

"Mother asked you to talk to me, didn't she?"  Elizabeth asked
suspiciously.

"No, this was my idea," said William, uneasily aware that he was being
subtly drawn into the fray against his will.  He went to sit on the
windowsill so as not to loom over her.  "You know, you have really
changed.  I can remember a time when you were so biddable Marissa
accused me of riding roughshod over you."

"William, that was years ago.  I'm not afraid of you anymore.  Marissa
taught me that.  And I have changed.  I can think for myself.  I know
what I want now.  I will marry

Jason, if he asks me.  That's all there is to it."

"But Mother--"

"Don't concern yourself about Mother.  I will convince her."  Elizabeth
folded her sewing as though the interview were at an end.  William
thought he had never been so summarily dismissed in his life.

"Very well."

"And William?"  He turned back from the door as Elizabeth's voice
softened.  "I am sorry you are caught in the middle of this.  You do
like Jason, don't you?"

William smiled then.  "I like him and admire him.  If only you can
convince Mother, I will do everything in my power to help, even in the
face of Lord Weir's disapproval."  "Jason wants to become a doctor."

"Marissa told me.  When you marry you can live with us at Westbourne
Place until he is done with school, or here in this house if you like.
Then I will help him get established."

Elizabeth forgot her newfound dignity and ran to hug her brother more
sincerely than she had ever done before.  "I knew I could count on
you."

"I don't know what I am going to say to Mother.  She will weep, you
know."

"Let me talk to her first.  I don't melt at the sight of a few
tears."

"You did not use them on me.  I like that in you."

"Well?"  Marissa demanded impatiently of her husband as they waited for
their horses to be saddled.

"I talked to Elizabeth.  She insists that she will marry Jason if he
asks her."

"That I could have guessed.  What did you say?"

"That I would do everything in my power--" William watched Marissa
tense "--to help them."

"Oh, William!  You are still my hero," vowed Marissa, flinging herself
into his arms.  "I knew you would not fail her."

"Two hugs in one day.  I will need them for strength to face Mother.  I
must explain to her why, for the first time in my life, I am aligned
against her and her good judgment."

Jason awoke to a dull thumping in his head, but that was nothing new.
As pain went, it was almost trivial.  He did not bother to open his eye
to find out where he was.  He felt clean and dry and warm and that was
enough comfort.  He knew better than to awaken the devils in his head
by trying to move.  Sleep was the one thing that interested him now.
His only goal was to sleep and he did not think beyond that.  Sure
enough, he slipped off again without even calling for Hollis.

When next he came awake hunger was gnawing at his stomach, but that too
was a familiar pain and he knew it would go away again if he waited
long enough.  He listened for the sounds of High Stand, the almost
perpetual chirp of crickets, the occasional lowing of a cow, but he
heard only carriage wheels and hoofbeats muffled as on grass.

"I can't still be in Belgium," he mumbled.

"No, you are in London," Hollis said, thumping down a laden tray.

Jason thought he smelled ham but he was sure Hollis had only enough
money to buy eggs and bread.  Then the whole missing two months slipped
back into place and jerked him awake with a start.  The darkness crept
back from his single pane of vision and there was a princess, dazzling
in a white dress, just rising from a seat.  His blurred and watery
vision set every point of light that hit her sparkling like a diamond
as she moved toward him.  She was far away and yet distinct and
perfect.  Then his eye focused and he realized she was walking right up
to the bed.  "Elizabeth," he whispered reverently.

"You can see me?"  Elizabeth asked joyfully.

"Yes, and you are beautiful, but why are you crying?"  "I was worried.
You slept so long."

"How lazy of me," he said thickly, putting his hand to his head.  "If I
had known you were here I would have gotten up.  But why are you
here?"

"I live here, silly."

Besieged

Jason looked about the room in confusion, then smiled at her,

"This is William's house.  Don't you remember?  Race knocked you
out."

Jason raised himself up and clutched at the covers as dizziness swept
over him,

"Are you able to eat, sir?"  Hollis asked, propping pillows behind
him.

"Maybe in a while.  My head's at sea right now."  Em bounded into the
room.  "Jason!  You are awake."

"What have you been up to, baggage?  You will wear that blue dress out
if you keep wearing it for me."

"Oh, Jason, you can see."  Em hugged him.  "We were so worried."

"I think if I saw myself in a mirror I would scare myself again.  I
need a shave."

"I shall get the hot water now," Hollis offered.  "What time is it
anyway?"

"Five o'clock in the afternoon," Em informed him.

"So is this breakfast or dinner?"  asked Jason, motioning toward the
tray.

"Whatever you want to call it," Hollis said, exiting with Em.

"What were you thinking when you smiled just now?"  Elizabeth asked,
pouring him some coffee and arranging the tray beside him on the bed so
that he could feed himself.  "You will laugh."  "Never."

"That we were married and this was our house."  "Would you like to
be?"

"Of course, what man would not?  But it would not be fair to you.  I
have nothing."

"That doesn't matter to me."

"I know that, but it matters to me."

She turned her back and went out the door.  Jason imagined she might be
in tears and hated himself for crushing her.  But it would be worse if
he let this thing go any further.

Elizabeth was actually in a towering rage, but no one would have
guessed it.  Marissa encountered her set face and sparkling eyes in the
upper hall.  "Elizabeth, don't tell me he has taken a turn for the
worse."

"No, in fact he is awake and, unfortunately, in his right senses
again."

"Unfortunately?"  Marissa asked as she hustled Elizabeth into her own
bedroom.

"You don't suppose I could tell him he proposed while he was delirious
and I accepted in good faith."

"Elizabeth--I don't think you could hold him to such a promise even if
he did make it."

"Any, other man pops the question on the wildest impulse.  But it is
impossible to bring Jason up to scratch.  He has these scruples, damn
him."

"Oh, about not having any money?"

"Does he think I will break if I have to do a bit of work?  I have been
poor before.  I would never miss these London fribbles so long as I got
to see all of you once in a while."

"I know that.  I find the city rather confining myself.  Do you want me
to talk to him?"

"No---oh no, Marissa--I know you.  You would tell him the whole and not
be at all delicate about it."

"I am not used to doing nothing," Marissa said, kicking a shoe across
the room.

"I am, but I'm tired of it," Elizabeth said as she kicked the other
shoe.

"Men," Marissa said, kicking one of the shoes again.  "Why do they have
to all be so stupid?"  Elizabeth's next shot sent the shoe neatly
through one of the windowpanes.  They both gasped and ran to see where
it had landed.  William was standing below them holding the ball he had
been teaching Amy to catch.  Amy ran and picked up the shoe and handed
it dutifully to her father.

"Marissa!"  he shouted.  "How am I to impress any discipline on our
child when she sees things like this?"

"I did--"

Marissa clapped a hand over Elizabeth's mouth.  "William hasn't been
angry in such a long time.  This could get really interesting."

"But it was my fault," Elizabeth protested as Marissa hustled her out
of the bedroom.

"I don't care.  I want the credit for it."  As Marissa was already
undressing, Elizabeth took herself off and managed to suppress her
laughter as a very determined William mounted the stairs and strode
past her.  She had got used to William and Marissa settling their
arguments in bed and rather envied them.

The next day Bellecoeur showed himself penitently in the Falcrest
morning room.  Ironically, only Victoria, Elizabeth and Jason were at
home and Race declined the opportunity to visit Elizabeth in Jason's
room.

"Why is she nursing him?  It hardly seems proper," he complained to
Victoria as he seated himself beside her.

"She insisted and she has had the most experience, besides being
patient enough to sit for hours at a time.  You must do something soon,
Racine, or Elizabeth will throw herself away on that soldier."

"What do you suggest?  I had hoped that if we went down to Talltrees
she would forget him.  It is a lovely place."

"Elizabeth needs more than a mere house to convince her.  Certainly
money holds no sway for her.  You must win her yourself."

"I can hardly abduct her."  Race toyed for a moment with the idea and
Victoria watched him desperately.  "No, there is much I would do, even
without your blessing--but an unwilling..."

"Race, do be serious.  Elizabeth is only acting this way because she
feels sorry for Jason.  She simply does not realize it yet."

Race rose and paced about the morning room.

"Will you speak to her again?"  asked Victoria hopefully.

"First I will talk to Weir.  He must be brought to realize what a
mistake it would be for him to marry Elizabeth."

"Do you think that is wise?  You two do not seem to be able to have a
conversation about Elizabeth without coming to blows, and another such
incident would be fatal to your cause."

Race looked at Victoria strangely and, for a moment, thought of her not
as an ally, but as any other mama attempting to trap him into marriage
with her daughter.  But that was what he wanted, was it not?  Marriage
to Elizabeth.  Of course it was.

"You have an idea?"  Victoria asked hopefully.

He smiled then.  "Other than warning Weir off?.  Yes, I have an idea. I
don't know why I didn't think of it before.  It always works."

He left Victoria with this disquieting assurance, for if it, whatever
it was, always worked, then surely he would be married many times over
by now.

Jason did not enjoy playing the invalid and did really feel well enough
to move back home by the second day.  Elizabeth had treated him rather
coolly when he left and now she was moping about the morning room,
regretting it.

"You have not seen Race since that night.  He is terribly sorry.  But
you must understand he was half-mad with jealousy," Victoria said.

This made Elizabeth thoughtful, but not for the reason her mother
intended.  Elizabeth decided to be very wary of mentioning any
partiality to Jason that would be carried to Race's ears.  Neither Race
nor her mother would know anything of it, if she had her way, until she
convinced Jason to marry her.  After that there would be no point in
Race attacking Jason.

"Race could give you everything.  He is passionately in love with
you."

"I really wonder, Mother, if Race can love anyone but himself.  Even
his devotion to his mama seems more of a performance than a fact."

"How can you say so?  I know what he means now when he says you are
unkind."

"I am realistic.  Perhaps I was enchanted with him for a time."
Elizabeth stared out the window for a moment, then shook her head. "But
Race is not real."

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh, I grant you he thinks he means what he says, but it is all a sham.
Have you any idea how many other women there have been?"

"Other women, yes.  That is only to be expected.  But he never before
has offered marriage."

"He has not offered it now," Elizabeth blurted out angrily.

"What?  Surely you are mistaken.  Surely, he has proposed to you.  If
you have chosen to treat such a declaration as a joke..."

"What proposal?"  Elizabeth asked, pressing her advantage as a way of
distracting her mother.  "Race doesn't want to marry me.  He just wants
me and if he were to win me, he would immediately cease wanting me.
Then where would I be?  Open your eyes, Mother.  He is a rake and a
gamester.  My life would be hell if it ever came to me marrying him."
Elizabeth rose and left the room on that dramatic note.  She could
almost wish to overhear her mother's next interview with Race.

Jason was well enough to escort Em and his mother about again but not
so steady on his feet as to go whirling around a ballroom.  The
dizziness had returned, but he was very nearly used to it now.  He was
enjoying watching Elizabeth dance.  She never seemed quite mortal to
him.  When she danced or even walked, she made no sound, for her feet
never touched down.  He had still not gotten over his astonishment at
her love for him.  He wondered if he would ever be in a position to
offer her marriage.  There were many years of hard work ahead of him
still, actually a lifetime of hard work.  He could not ask her to wait
for him.  Could those years be shared?  He must have been smiling
rather foolishly when he became conscious of someone staring at him and
turned to encounter Race's eyes.  They cut through him like a knife. It
was the first time he had seen him since the fight at Falcrest House.

Race had come to the assembly in hopes of catching Elizabeth
unchaperoned by her sister-in-law.  He had not expected Captain Weir to
be well enough to attend.  But when he saw him he decided Weir could
not have been hurt very badly after all.  Certainly he bore no visible
marks of the fight.  Race looked meaningfully toward the long windows
at the end of the ballroom and jerked his head in that direction.

Jason thought he should ignore this sign, but he was never one to run
from a fight.  He made his way in that direction, taking out his cigar
case.  As he left the room he lit his cigar off one of the candle
sconces.  He did not know why the smoke mellowed and calmed him.
Perhaps his father was fight; it was no good for him.  He only knew
that it was necessary.

"Do you smoke?"  he asked Bellecoeur as the other man walked up to
him.

"Yes--no, not now.  I want to talk to you about Elizabeth,"

"That does not come as any great surprise.  Elizabeth is our only
common interest."

"How can she prefer you to me?"  Race asked impatiently.  "You are
hideous.  Elizabeth hates thinking about the war because of her
brother.  She is sick to death of having to deal with it.  She says I
am the only one untouched by it."

"Is that true?"  Jason asked, blowing a cloud of smoke

Besieged into the night air and feeling that strange, familiar calm
seeping through him.  He was not even stung by Race's words.

"No.  How could anyone live in this time and not be affected by it?"

"You--wanted to fight?"  Jason asked in surprise.  "Of course, but I
couldn't figure out which side."

Jason coughed on a laugh, but when he looked at Race he discovered he
was quite serious.

"I would have joined the French, but my mother would have been
prostrated."

"I see your problem.  You could not very well fight on the English side
since you had made so many enemies among the young officers.  You would
have had no one to talk with."

"You make light of me.  Why do I even talk to you?  This war tore me
apart."

"Then you had best keep it from Elizabeth.  Your neutrality may be all
you have going for you."

"I do love her."

"That goes without saying.  Everyone loves her."

"No, I truly love her.  I cannot live without her.  I imagine it."

"I almost believe you," Jason said, scrutinizing him.

"She must be mine.  All I want in life is to take care o!  her."

"Perhaps that is not what she wants in life," Jason de red

"Any woman would want to be protected, adored, shiped."

Jason stared at him through this poetic speech.  "Are you quite sure
about that?  I mean, have you asked her?"

"I have spoken to her mother," Race said defensively:

"I see then,  everything is settled Jason ulated.

ts she cannot get Elizabeth to see convince her.  That is why I want
you to stop seeing Elizabeth."

"If she really loved you, my presence or absence would not make a bit
of difference."

"So you are going to be difficult."

"I am not going to hurt her."  Jason almost choked on the words, for
that was exactly what he was doing.  He was no better than Bellecoeur.
If he had any integrity he would agree to step aside and give them his
blessing.  The thought chilled him to the bone.

"You will ruin her life," Race said passionately.  "That may be, but it
will be her choice."  "Think well before you do this thing to her."

Doubt must have shown in Jason's face, for Race was content to part
with those words.  Jason followed him back to the ballroom after a few
minutes in which he did consider again the sacrifice he was considering
asking Elizabeth to make.  It was no good.  He could vow to give her up
all he wanted when he was alone.  He knew it was the right thing to do.
But when he went to tell her, she changed all.  She was so positive.
She brushed aside his concerns as though they were nothing and made him
feel that he could do anything.

In the time it had taken him to drag himself back inside, Race had
managed to ingratiate himself with Em enough to persuade her to dance.
It disturbed Jason more than he liked to admit to see his baby sister
even talking to such a man.  But when she went down the floor and took
her place, she grinned at Jason so impishly he smiled at her in relief.
His gaze wandered as always to Elizabeth and he watched her to the
exclusion of every other woman in the ballroom.

Elizabeth left the set and went to say something to Ma-rissa.  The
music had stopped and Jason knew this meant something to him.
Unconsciously he gazed around the room and then it hit him that Em was
missing.  It was a familiar, nagging feeling to have her float off on
someone's

Besieged into the night air and feeling that strange, familiar calm
seeping through him.  He was not even stung by Race's words.

"No.  How could anyone live in this time and not be affected by it?"

"You--wanted to fight?"  Jason asked in surprise.  "Of course, but I
couldn't figure out which side."

Jason coughed on a laugh, but when he looked at Race he discovered he
was quite serious.

"I would have joined the French, but my mother would have been
prostrated."

"I see your problem.  You could not very well fight on the English side
since you had made so many enemies among the young officers.  You would
have had no one to talk with."

"You make light of me.  Why do I even talk to you?  This war tore me
apart."

"Then you had best keep it from Elizabeth.  Your neutrality may be all
you have going for you."

"I do love her."

"That goes without saying.  Everyone loves her."

"No, I truly love her.  I cannot live without her.  I cannot imagine
it."

"I almost believe you," Jason said, scrutinizing him.

"She must be mine.  All I want in life is to take care of her."

"Perhaps that is not what she wants in life," Jason pondered.

"Any woman would want to be protected, adored, worshiped."

Jason stared at him through this poetic speech.  "Are you quite sure
about that?  I mean, have you asked her?"

"I have spoken to her mother," Race said defensively.

"I see, then I suppose everything is settled," Jason speculated.

"She says she cannot get Elizabeth to see reason.  I must convince her.
That is why I want you to stop seeing Elizabeth."

"If she really loved you, my presence or absence would not make a bit
of difference."

"So you are going to be difficult."

"I am not going to hurt her."  Jason almost choked on the words, for
that was exactly what he was doing.  He was no better than Bellecoeur.
If he had any integrity he would agree to step aside and give them his
blessing.  The thought chilled him to the bone.

"You will ruin her life," Race said passionately.  "That may be, but it
will be her choice."  "Think well before you do this thing to her."

Doubt must have shown in Jason's face, for Race was content to part
with those words.  Jason followed him back to the ballroom after a few
minutes in which he did consider again the sacrifice he was considering
asking Elizabeth to make.  It was no good.  He could vow to give her up
all he wanted when he was alone.  He knew it was the fight thing to do.
But when he went to tell her, she changed all.  She was so positive.
She brushed aside his concerns as though they were nothing and made him
feel that he could do anything.

In the time it had taken him to drag himself back inside, Race had
managed to ingratiate himself with Em enough to persuade her to dance.
It disturbed Jason more than he liked to admit to see his baby sister
even talking to such a man.  But when she went down the floor and took
her place, she grinned at Jason so impishly he smiled at her in relief.
His gaze wandered as always to Elizabeth and he watched her to the
exclusion of every other woman in the ballroom.

Elizabeth left the set and went to say something to Ma-rissa.  The
music had stopped and Jason knew this meant something to him.
Unconsciously he gazed around the room and then it hit him that Em was
missing.  It was a familiar, nagging feeling to have her float off on
someone's arm, but particularly disturbing since she had just been with
Bellecoeur.

It was while Jason was seeking his sister in the side rooms that he
came across Em running out of a salon from whence came angry voices.

"Oh, where is Lord Falcrest?"  Em pleaded.  "He must stop them!"

"The other end of the ballroom," Jason said, looking her over to make
sure she was all right.  "Go fetch him.  I will see what I can do,"
Jason offered.

"So you can stomach me as a brother-in-law, but not as a rival?"  Race
asked Clive belligerently.

Jason entered and closed the door behind him.  He reflected that he was
the least qualified to break up such an argument.

"You know you have no real interest in that child, you blackguard. What
did you say to lure her in here?"  Clive was maintaining what Jason
thought to be an admirable calm.

"What makes you think that I lured her?"

"The fellow has a point," Jason said.

Race finally noticed Jason, who had moved uneasily beside the door.
"What the devil do you want?"  Race demanded.

"Only to warn you that this is' not the place to discuss such things.
You can be heard from the hall."

"Faicrest is the one who interfered."

"Interfered!  I would interfere on behalf of any young girl lured off
by you."

"I did not drag her in here."

"You put her out of countenance.  Moreover you frightened her.  I won't
have it."

"Clive, if you knew Em better..."  Jason started, but too late.  Race
and Clive locked with each other and resisted all Jason's efforts to
get between them.  Race forced Clive back against a sofa and they both
tipped over it.  William appeared suddenly and bodily lifted Race off
C!I've.  Jason was then able to help Clive up and to a chair.

"This is our affair," Clive shouted through the blood from a split
lip.

"Hardly an affair of honor," William said calmly.  "More like a
brawl."

"It is between us.  We will settle it," Race said, feeling his tender
jaw.

"Not in public," William warned.

The combatants seemed to relax then and Jason glanced nervously toward
the door.

"Marissa is on guard there," William said.  "Now, what is this
about?"

"I can take care of this myself," Clive said, wiping the back of his
hand across his mouth.

"Not now.  You are coming outside with me."  "I will not be hauled off
like a schoolboy."  "Then stop acting like one."

"I started it," Race volunteered proudly, straightening his neck
cloth.

"I see," William said.

"I suppose I will not be welcome in your house anymore."

"You are Elizabeth's guest in my house.  That is quite up to her."

"I don't want to see you again, Race."  Elizabeth's tightly controlled
voice made them all jump.

"You cannot mean that," Race said, coming toward the open door.

Elizabeth brushed past him to look at her brother, and Marissa opened
the door wider in an obvious invitation for Race to use it.

"Yes, I mean it," she said as she calmly doctored Clive's face.

Race left, puzzled and hurt.  Never in his spoiled life had such
tactics failed to get him what he wanted.  Jason should have been
angered at his attentions to Emily, angry enough to take her away,
perhaps even away from London.  And if Elizabeth were a normal woman
she should have been jealous.  It never occurred to him he should not
be fighting a lame man.

"This is like old times," said Marissa, closing the door after Race.

"Yes," agreed William.  "Our ill-fated trip to the Cockpit Royale."

"In those days both you and C!I've thought it the height of adventure
to get beaten up."

"I would have knocked him out cold if not for this game leg."

"Yes, Clive," agreed Marissa.  "You are laughing at me."  "Never."

Chapter Eleven

Jason, his father and Em were returning in their carriage from a rather
strained dinner at the Morefords.  His mother had not felt up to
attending in spite of all the strength she had gained since coming to
London.  Jason really thought that since she did not approve of this
match his father was trying to arrange, she refused to condone it with
her presence.  He wished he could have been absent himself.  It was an
uncomfortable evening one way or another.  Both fathers had been
affable.  Mrs.  Moreford had coerced her daughter into playing and
singing for them in spite of her timidity around Jason.  Jason had said
little.  Let alone he must remain noncommittal with the girl, he seemed
to frighten her no matter what he talked of.  Em had done her best to
lighten the evening, valiantly volunteering to play a piece she had
barely begun to practice.  When she came to a section where she lost
herself she merely skipped it and went on.  Lady Moreford had raised
her eyebrows more than once at this high-handed abbreviation.  Jason
did not think Beethoven had ever been subjected to such an
interpretation, but it was for a good cause.  Then Em had played and
sung an army song, which unfortunately she remembered exactly, causing
Mrs.  Moreford to blush and the gentlemen to stir uncomfortably in
their seats.  Jason was now humming the tune over as the carriage
wended its way home.

"Must you?"  his father asked in disgust.

"Oh, sorry.  By the way, Em, please don't sing that song in polite
company again."

"Why not?  Stephen says I do it amazingly well."  "Which one is
Stephen?  Did he teach it to you?"  "Yes.  Why must I not play it
again?"

"I don't think I am up to explaining it.  You will play it for Mother
tomorrow and she will tell you in her way.  You don't know any other
such songs, do you?"

"One or two."

"I expect you had better trot them all out for us then," Jason
advised.

"I am sure the Morefords realized she didn't know what it meant," his
father said.  He turned to Jason.  "As for your behavior, it was
inexcusable.  You do not even make an attempt to get to know Cecy."

"I do not think this match will wash, Father.  Let alone the girl is
terrified of me, I have no interest in her."

Lord Weir stared at his son in that unnerving way he had.  Only the
relative darkness of the coach kept Jason from squirming in his seat.

"Don't look at me like that."

"Like what?"

"Like I have no proper feelings, and am monstrously ungrateful for all
you have done."

"I think you do not comprehend how close we came to losing High
Stand."

"What?"  Jason and Em gasped in unison.

"Your brother was expensive, not just his gambling debts.  There were
those two cases where I had to give security to indemnify the
parish."

"What does that mean?"  Em asked.

"Not now, Em.  When you mentioned ... that, I thought you were
joking."

"He was thrown in prison in that last case.  His only choice would have
been to marry the girl."

"Would he?

"Oh, you mean his bastards?"  Em concluded.

"You know about them?"  Jason asked.

"Around Hereford everyone knows," said Lord Weir.  "And Alton does not
help matters, always emptying his pockets to the poor.  He is very
nearly as expensive as Geoffrey was."

Jason hesitated.  He knew his father was an expert manipulator, but
would he stretch the truth in this matter just to bend Jason to his
will?  "If there was a way for me to help other than this, I would do
anything."

"Why can you not stomach Cecy?  She is biddable enough.  You don't even
try to get to know her."

"I do not love her.  How could I take the marriage vows knowing I never
would?"

"You have not given yourself a chance--"

"Father, don't," Em pleaded.  "Don't make Jason do this thing.  Indeed
there is no need.  If someone must marry to restore our fortunes, I
will do it."

"Don't talk nonsense, Em," advised Lord Weir.  "You are still a
child."

"Thank you, Era, but I cannot let you make that sacrifice," Jason said,
half jokingly.

"But it won't be a sacrifice.  There is no one I care particularly
about.  I have only to figure out which of my suitors has the most
money."

"None of them, Em.  They are all penniless soldiers or younger sons,"
Jason informed her.

"Really, Surely one of them must be eligible."

"Why do you think we have been at such pains to keep you from them?"

"Well, then, Father will just have to arrange a match for me.  It
cannot be so difficult."

Lord Weir relaxed in the seat and gave a low chuckle.  "Almost
impossible, I'm afraid, my dear, to find a man worthy of you.  Why, it
might take years.  You will just have to be patient."

Besieged

"Very well, if you think we should wait."

"Yes, Em, take your time over this," Jason advised.

Em's scheme to marry a rich husband was a new for her, but she did not
think it would tax her overmuch even with all the other irons she had
in the fire.  It was easy enough to get someone to propose to you.
fact, young men were forever popping the question.  Sh only laughed at
them.  The trick was to attract the of the right man, while evading
both Jason and Clive.  With a last glance around the room she slipped
onto the in pursuit of her quarry.  She saw a point of lighting tip of
a cigar, that moved to attention when she out through the tall windows
and closed them again.

"Oh, it's you," Em said with something that like surprise.

"Ah, Emily."  Race went back to leaning on the balustrade as she
retreated from the light coming through window.  "What are you doing
out here?  Waiting for one?"

"No, hiding, and I only just escaped so please don't me away."

"Escaped from what?"

"Dancing with Lord Bolton.  I could not refuse

I couldn't bear the thought of dancing with him,

"I see.  So much kinder to have the poor fellow the whole set looking
for you."

"Well, why do men you don't like insist on to dance?"

"Conceit, I suppose.  Some men cannot imagine not universally liked."

"But that's stupid."

"I agree.  Now I am generally disliked, or at trusted.  So I am careful
whom I ask to dance.  A

would be too crushing."

"I would never refuse you."

"But when I ask you to dance everyone wonders for the pleasure of being
with you or for the satisfaction of taunting your brother."

"And which is it?"

"For the moment, the latter, but I think in a year or two it might be
different."

"Well, I cannot wait."

"What?"

"It looks as though I shall be compelled to marry for money, since
Jason is not going to."

"Have a care what you are saying," Race warned, genuinely taken aback.
"Surely you don't blurt this out to any man you encounter."

"No, of course not.  None of them have any money, but you have a great
deal."

Race laughed.  "And you are still a child."  "Everyone says that."
"It's true, my dear."

Em pouted and sighed.  "What's that like?"

"What?"

"That cigar," she said, moving toward the object he had been carefully
holding away from her muslin dress.  "Jason smokes them.  Don't they
strangle you?"

"No, not if you just take the smoke into your mouth then blow it out
without inhaling.  You try it."

"Did I do it right?"  Em asked a little tearfully after a studied
attempt.

"Yes, do you realize what a sensation you would create if you took to
blowing a cloud?  Not with these great things, but the smaller ones."

"Where would I get them?"

"I will make you a present of a box so you can practice."

"That's kind of you.  I don't think you can be right, you know."

"About what?"

"About so many people disliking you.  You are just like Jason and very
likable."

Race's conscience struck him a jab about the smoking.  "No I'm not. 
You just don't know me."

"I had better go back in.  I dare not miss two in a row."  "One broken
heart a night is enough."  "If only that would do the trick.  It's all
very well to have a following, but some of the men one collects are
such a bother."

"Let me know who they are and I will dispose of them."  "No, you might
shoot them and I don't want that on my con science."  '

Race laughed a little uneasily as Em glided away from him and went back
inside.  The feeling of being thrown off-balance was a familiar one to
him but usually was caused by Elizabeth or Marissa, not by a mere
child.

The Falcrests were just finishing up dinner at the Weirs' house.  Em
was seated to Jason's right, so it was only his father's suppressed
gasp that caused Jason to turn and look at Em, who 'had withdrawn a
thin cigar from her reticule and lit it on one of the candles from the
table as she had seen her brother do so often.

Jason's single eye opened wide, he thought like lightning, and he
casually took the offending object from his sister.  "Thank you, Em. Em
got in the habit of lighting these for me when I was blinded," he
announced to the table in general.  "Now she knows pretty well when I
want one."

"I still say it's a filthy habit," Lord Weir said with relief.  "No
doubt you are right, Father.  Will you walk outside with me, Era, while
I finish this?"  Jason got up and raised his sister firmly by the arm.
She looked at him in some surprise as he walked her out of the house
and down the quiet street.

Lady Weir covered the embarrassed silence that followed the departure
of Jason and Em by rising and taking the other ladies off with her.

Lord Weir moved uncomfortably in his chair and made a few more
disparaging remarks about the habits of young officers just back from
foreign pans.

"I would not be too hard on Jason.  There is much to admire in the
boy," said William, with a smile.

"I give him his due when it comes to courage under fire."

"I was thinking more along the lines of social adroitness."

Lord Weir coughed and smiled.  "Yes, something tells me Em has given
him more bad moments than the French."

"Who taught you that trick?"  Jason asked when they reached the corner.
"And don't say it was me."  He threw the cigar into the gutter.

"Every girl needs something to make her stand out."  "Em, you are
already outstanding for your plain speaking, your neck-or-nothing
riding and your eyes, which are said to have broken a dozen hearts this
season.  Such a stunt would point you out as being fast.  Now who
suggested it?"

"I--I won't tell you.  I thought of it myself."

"I don't know all the young officers you gad about with,

but I will find out---don't tell me it was Bellecoeur!"

"I said I won't tell you who it was."

Jason felt a hand squeeze his heart.  "Who would have thought he would
revenge himself on me by trying to ruin you?"  Jason said out loud.

Em looked innocently up at her brother.

"You must be careful of him, Em.  He's a dangerous man.  And you must
not smoke anymore.  Promise me."

"I don't see what is so wrong with it.  You smoke.  So does Clive."

"But no woman does.  I know it does not seem fair.  I will make a
bargain with you.  I will not use them anymore if you will not.  Then
we will both make Father happy."

"Well..."

"Believe me, it will cost me a great deal more than you to give them
up."

"Oh, very well, but will you teach me to drive, then?"  "What little I
know."

Clive and Tony had just returned from another fruitless trip to
Portsmouth and had stopped at White's to fortify Tony against his
reception at home.  Jason and Lord Weir were just finishing a desultory
lunch.  They tried to decide upon their next strategy and they
discovered they had none.  If, after all this time, they had failed to
turn up any sign of Charlie it looked to be hopeless.  Tony decided
that after a few days' rest, he would go to Brussels with or without
his father's consent to see if there was any record or trace of Charlie
in the general hospital there.  Clive volunteered to go with him and
Jason offered to hold the fort in London now that he was on his feet
again.  More than that they could not do.

Lord Weir had noticed a certain amount of tension in Jason these past
few, days and when Clive offered him a cigar, he thought Jason's hand
actually shook.

"No, thank you," Jason said unsteadily as he gripped the arm of his
chair.

"Don't let me stop you enjoying yourself," Lord Weir said.

"You have not."  Jason sighed.  "It was Em's price for not disgracing
herself again."

"What?"  asked Clive.

"While you were away my daughter proceeded to light one of those things
in mixed company," Lord Weir informed Clive.

"Oh, no!"  Tony said.  "Why would she take it into her head to do such
a thing?"

"That's what I asked her."  Jason sounded harassed.  "It's not a thing
I would even have thought to warn her against.  It turns out Race
Bellecoeur put the thought into her head."

"But Bellecoeur is the man who knocked you out," Tony said.  "How could
your sister stomach someone who had almost killed you?"

Clive swore softly.  "That slimy devil.  He's still playing up to
Elizabeth when he can get near her.  I have a good mind--"

"Em is not as innocent as she makes everyone believe," Lord Weir said
to their confusion.

"Well, I know that, Father.  Surely she has not--" "No, I mean she is
smarter than you give her credit for.  Recollect I know her better than
you now.  I have had charge of her these last few years and her
ingenuity amazes me.  When she comes at you with that look in her
eyes..."  "The innocent one?"

"Yes, accompanied by a vague smile.  That's when she is at her most
dangerous."

Clive laughed.  "You are putting me on.  Em is just a child."

"Who gets whatever she wants," said Lord Weir.  "If I attempt to thwart
her one way she strikes for the flank.  I am no match for her.  But I
love to watch her in action."

"You give in to her then?"  Tony asked with a tired smile.

"Let's say I reconcile myself to the inevitable."

"Speaking of Em, where is she now?"  Jason asked nervously.

"Shopping with your mother."

"I simply cannot believe she is that divisive," Clive said.

"When she said she would not go to London without me she meant it,"
Jason stated.

"And she got you to come, didn't she?"

"And what about the balloon?"  Jason asked.  His father looked at him
blankly.

"She wanted to ride in one," Jason said.  "But she gave it up when she
realized it would make me dizzy."

"Oh, uh, she got me to take her later," Clive said.  "It did not seem
to me to be such an awful thing to do."

Lord Weir chuckled.  "If Em has one failing it is not cleaning up after
her successes.  She forgot to warn Clive not to speak of it."

"I don't imagine she has any trouble getting forgiveness," Tony said
ruefully.

"Especially if it was something she was not warned of.  Then the blame
reverts to me," Jason replied tiredly.

"And now she has got 'you to stop smoking just because she thought it
would smooth things over between us."

"Then she was not taken in by Bellecoeur!"  Jason said, enlightenment
dawning.

"Lord, she used him," Clive snorted.  "It would upset him to learn
that."

"If I was sure she planned that stunt I would be angry with her," Jason
vowed.

"But for how long?"  Lord Weir asked.  "Besides, it's too late.  She
got away with it.  Really, Jason, you must be tired.  You do not manage
to cope with her as well as I do."

Jason smiled.  "And now that my nerves are shattered from having to
give up this vice she will really be able to take advantage of me."

"Perhaps that's what she had in mind all along.  Who knows how far
ahead she may plan," Lord Weir surmised.

The four men fell into a contemplative silence, thinking on the
complexity of women in general and of a few in particular.

Clive had observed the progress of his brother's marriage and how the
reins of control had slipped subtly into Ma-rissa's hands.  William
seldom put his foot down anymore and more often than not wore a
somewhat confused expression.  Clive liked his sister-in-law immensely
but would never want.  such a woman to wife.  The thought that Em, at
her young age, might also be a force to be reckoned with made him
realize he would either have to keep a brotherly distance between them
from now on, or risk losing his freedom.

When C!I've arrived in Portman Square Elizabeth was watching for him at
the window.  It would have been a comforting feeling if he had better
news for her.  He smiled but was careful to give her no encouraging
sign.  She put down her sewing and went into the hall to greet him as
she had so many times before.

"No luck, I'm afraid."

"You have worn yourself out," she said, looking searchingly into his
face.  "Why don't you rest before dinner."

Clive smiled at her concern.  But it looked to him as though Elizabeth
needed the rest.  "I'm used to traveling.  I shall be rested by
tonight.  What is going forward?"

"We all thought to spend the evening at home.  You're going to stop
looking now, aren't you?"

He put his arm around her and walked with her into the drawing room.

"Cairnbrooke told me to," he said, sinking wearily into a chair.

Elizabeth nodded without meeting his eyes.  "I'm sorry, Clive."  She
twisted her hands together, a habit she had developed of late.

"But I mean to take the packet to Ostend with him," he said, putting
his own hand over her clasped ones in a comforting way.

"Belgium!  But why?  Do you really believe he's still alive?" Elizabeth
asked, kneeling by his chair.

Elizabeth looked to be in such a panic Clive said, "No, but having come
this far, we may as well complete the search so far as we are able.
Charlie may still be lying nameless in the general hospital in
Brussels.  Many wounded were robbed of their money and identification."
He stroked her pale cheek.  "We should never have involved you in this.
He's my friend and Tony's brother."

"But he's my--"

"I know.  He's your friend, too, and the closest one to us not to have
survived.  You must put it out of your mind now."

Elizabeth sighed.  If she could not be honest with C!I've, then she
truly was a terrible person.  "Charlie asked me to marry him the night
he left."

"But I thought you looked on Charlie almost as a brother."

"I did," she said, looking away.

"You should not be feeling guilty.  Even if you had accepted his offer
he would still be missing."

"But I did accept."  Elizabeth wrenched her gaze back to C!I've.  "He
seemed so desperate.  It was not in me to hurt him."

"Damn!"

"I'm sorry."

"No, I mean damn Charlie for putting you in such a fix.  Now you and
Jason don't know where you are."

"We have to know one way or the other.  At least, Jason feels he
does."

"That decides it," Clive said purposefully as he rose.  "It will have
to be Belgium."

"Clive, I don't want you to go, and not because I'm afraid you'll find
Charlie.  Of course I want him to be alive.  But there may be fever in
the hospitals there."

"I can't catch what I've already had.  Besides, Jason and I have both
found that we are more durable than we thought.  And you would not
believe how strong Tony is.  He is worth a dozen of Charlie.  If there
is no trace there, we will hold a service and bury Charlie Cairnbrooke.
Then you and Jason will be free of him."

"If only it were so easy," Elizabeth said, shaking her head.

"You should have told Charlie to go to the devil when he popped the
question."

"If I had I would be feeling even guiltier now."

"You are too sweet for your own good," he said, lifting her chin to
smile at her.  "What a tangle!  Don't worry.  We shall come about.  So
that's why Jason has been acting so desperate lately.  Poor devil."

"He wants Charlie to be alive, too, but if Charlie is found Jason means
to step aside."

"Now, really!  That's too much of a sacrifice,"

"I'm coming with you," Elizabeth decided.  "I should be the one to tell
Charlie.  I don't care what he thinks of me if only he is alive."

"No!  I won't let you speak to him.  I know what a wheedling fellow he
is.  I should have warned you he mentioned something about it to me,
but when he said no more I assumed it came to nothing.  Well, you know
Charlie.  He doesn't do half the things he says he will.  I was shocked
when he actually joined a cavalry regiment."

"Perhaps he will have changed his mind," Elizabeth said hopefully.

"If not, I shall change it for him."

"You must not be unkind.  If he is wounded..."

"If he is wounded we will take care of him, but I will not let you
sacrifice your happiness for him.  You and Jason belong together.  Even
I can see that."

"Charlie is not the only problem.  Lord Weir is strongly opposed to the
match."

"I don't imagine Mother will be thrilled with the idea, either."

"She is the least of my worries," Elizabeth said, thinking again of
Bellecoeur.

"Then you have more courage than me.  If all else fails you can both
make your home with me at Burcombe Farm.  I have plenty of space."

"William and Marissa are siding with us, too."

"The redoubtable Marissa.  Victory is assured now."

Chapter Twelve

Clive took Elizabeth to the party at the Ruscombes.  He thought it
would cheer her up to see Jason there but Jason did not appear the
entire evening.

"We don't know what has become of him," Em confided to Clive and
Elizabeth.  "He said he would meet us here and Father did not mean to
stay, but he can't leave me with just Mother."

"Tell Lord Weir we will see you home if he wants to take Lady Weir home
early," Clive offered.

"Too late.  He is already angry with Jason.  He will end up shouting at
him no matter what Jason's excuse is."  Clive nodded without
understanding and went off to the card room.

"Why is he angry at Jason?"  Elizabeth asked.  "Not be~ cause--"

"Jason won't have anything to do with Cecy for a start.  Now he insists
he is going to become a doctor.  Father might not like that just
because it was not what he had in mind for Jason to do."

"It's not to do with me then?"

"No.  Look, Race is here."

"Em, I beg of you not to dance with him again.  I do not want to be
doctoring Clive's face tonight," Elizabeth said.

"Well, if you think I shouldn't.  He is such an interesting person
compared to the others.  And he speaks French to me."

"French?  Do you understand him?"

"No, not most of it."

"Please stay out of trouble.  If your father is already angry at Jason,
you had better stay on his good side tonight.  Remember he is not
usually watching you, so he has no idea what tricks you get up to."

"That's right!  Thanks for reminding me."

Elizabeth fanned herself nervously hoping that Em would be good this
one night for Jason's sake.

"Where is your one-eyed jack tonight?"  Race asked from beside her.

"I don't know and don't call him that," Elizabeth said in annoyance at
having him sneak up on her.  "I know."  "What?"

"I know where he is."

"If you have done something to him..."

"I haven't laid a hand on him.  I knew his taste for low company would
get him into trouble.  He is, after all, a common soldier."

"He is a captain in the Royal Horse Artillery," Elizabeth said
proudly.

"He is also a patron of a certain house in Horsemonger Lane."

"A gaming hell?  I don't believe it."  Elizabeth continued to ply her
fan to cool the anger rising in her.  "Worse than that," Race
suggested.  "Stop it.  I won't listen to you."

"Ask him where he was then.  I'm sure he will have a good tale to tell,
nothing as interesting as the truth, of course."

"I know the truth when I hear it, and you are lying."  "You'll never
really know, will you, my dear?"

Race sauntered off and Elizabeth felt unaccountably put out.  She
fastened her attention on Em.  Since she had made herself responsible
for the girl she must watch her just as closely as Jason would.  She
had wanted to see Jason to tell him of C!I've's support.  It could
wait, of course, but she had been looking forward to sharing this with
him.  Not to have him appear made the evening very flat.  Then to have
Race whispering such things to her made her angry at both of them.

"You are up early," Elizabeth said a little coldly as Jason crossed the
grassy park in the middle of the square toward her, the nursery maid
and Amy.

"So are you."  He searched his jacket pockets vaguely, then remembered
his promise and just put his hands in his pockets for lack of anything
else to do.

"Amy is always up at the crack of dawn, about the time William and
Marissa like to go riding.  This wears her out a little for breakfast,"
Elizabeth said as though Jason were a casual acquaintance.

"Jason, you look sleepy," Amy said unreservedly.  "Sorry.  I'm actually
coming at the day from the other end.  It's not what you think," Jason
said apologetically as Elizabeth took a critical look at his unshaven
condition and wrinkled coat.  "I was at the hospital all night.  There
was a young boy there I had gotten to know."

"Did he die?"  Elizabeth asked, softening toward him.  "Yes, and not
easily."  Jason rubbed his forehead and Elizabeth thought he must not
be thinking clearly not to try to shield her from news such as this.
"He sent for me because he had no one else."

"You were at the hospital all night then?"  Elizabeth asked.

"I would have sent you word, except that I did not want to spoil your
evening."

"I might have known it was something like that, not what..."  Elizabeth
blushed.  "Not what Race suggested."

"I can imagine what he planted in your mind," Jason said with a tired
smile.

"Jason, it was not that I believed him.  I was worried.  I scarcely
slept all night."

"This is what it would be like to be married to a doctor."

"I could handle it if only I knew you were safe.  But you must let me
know," she said urgently.

"You really were frightened?"  he asked in amazement,

and lifted her chin to look at the tears in her eyes.  "Yes, and Race
can be so convincing."

"Yes, I have had some experience of his persuasiveness.  I had better
leave you now," Jason said, becoming suddenly conscious of all the
windows that fronted on the square.  "I must look a fright."

"You look fine," said Elizabeth, smiling at him.  "Except you look as
though you could use some coffee.  Walk us home and I will give you
breakfast.  It is the least I can

"Truth to tell, I am afraid to go home.  Father won't like it even if
he believes I have been at the hospital."

Amy ran to him and he picked her up as automatically as though she were
his own child and carried her into the house.  She stroked his bristly
cheeks until he sat her down at the breakfast table.  The Falcrest
servants brought coffee, jam and rolls with their usual aplomb, and
even produced some sausages for the beleaguered Jason.  Elizabeth
waited until he had taken the edge off his hunger and the hot coffee
had brought some of the color back to his face before she asked, "Who
was it?"

"The Wright boy.  He was just trying to die with as much dignity as
possible.  But he was afraid.  And the pain--I have been in that
position myself.  How could I leave him?"

"You could not, of course," said Elizabeth, refilling his cup.  This is
what it will be like, she thought, being married to Jason.  I will
always come second, even after a stranger.  It was a sobering thought.
But he will always come home to me, she thought, and he will tell me
about his cases, like he is doing today.  Whether he has won or lost,
he will need to tell me about them and I will always be here and I will
always understand.  She smiled at him then, not the brilliant, dazzling
smile of the debutante, but the quiet, strong smile of a wife.

Jason smiled back at Elizabeth.  Amy invited her puppy into the room
and began feeding him the crumbs and jam from her plate.

Jason leaned back in his chair wearily.  "I think I understand
something now that was a mystery to me only yesterday."

"What is that, Jason?"

"How doctors manage to keep going, knowing that death will always win
in the end.  It would have felt good to walk home in the early dawn
like that knowing I had done something to save a life, however
temporary a victory that might be.  But there was some small
satisfaction in walking home knowing I had seen a life courageously
ended.  It would be hard to lose a patient for no reason, or, God
forbid, a mistake, but death is bearable.  In some cases, it is
acceptable."

"You must become a doctor then," Elizabeth whispered.  "I could do
that."  Jason looked up at her with a sparkle of his old energy.  "It
would be something worth losing sleep over, to come home to a
well-deserved rest, and to you."  He covered her hand on the table with
his own.  "Is this a proposal?"  "Do you want it to be?"

"Yes, you idiot!"  It was a term of endearment she would save for him
in the years ahead when he had lost faith in himself and needed her to
reassure him that he was not a failure, that he was a good doctor, and
that, abve all, his life had not been wasted.

"But I have not had time to get a ring for you, unless you want to wear
this one for the time being."  Jason slid a ring of twisted silver off
his little finger and tried to focus on her hand.  Elizabeth slipped
her finger into it as though she were running into his arms.  "I bought
it in Spain to keep my saber from blistering my finger during drill."

"It's all worn on the inside from your sword," she said, holding her
hand palm up to look at it.

"Not much of an engagement ring, but I shall--"

"I like it.  It protected you, so it means something.  I will have no
other ring," she said, turning her head to admire it in the light.

"You are being most determined today," he said, reaching for her.  "And
as always, most beautiful."

"I am determined you shall be shaved before you kiss me," Elizabeth
said, jumping back from him with a grin.

As Jason stole his kiss, Amy grabbed her puppy and planted a kiss on
its sticky snout.

"I must talk to my father now.  He won't understand or like it."

"For a time you seemed to get along so well with him.  Then something
happened.  Have I come between you?"

"No, I have not consented to his scheme to marry someone else and I
have not yet told him why."

"I know, someone with money," Elizabeth said despondently then suddenly
noticed her niece.  "Oh, Amy, you have jam all over you," she said, but
made no move to remedy the mess.

Jason pulled his chair closer, vaguely aware that the puppy was
commencing to lick AmY's sticky face and fingers.  "I think that if you
were the wealthiest woman in London, that would be more of an
impediment than both of us having nothing.  Do you understand?  You
would always wonder if that had something to do with it."

"The same would be true if you had money," Elizabeth countered.

"Then we are very much better off as we are," Jason concluded.  "The
other thing I fear I must do is confront your mother and I do mean
fear."

"I will handle Mother.  You will go home and sleep now, won't you?  I
wish we were already married."

"So do I. I promise I will sleep."  Their lips came together over the
remains of the meal.  They might have lingered thus for some time or
even found a more comfortable place had they not heard Marissa's merry
voice in the hall and William answering her.

"Here comes your brother," Jason said, tearing himself away from her
and rising abruptly.

"He would not care and you know Marissa would not.  Will I see you
tonight?"

"That I do promise--oh, no!--Amy!"

"What is it?"  Marissa asked, coming into the room.

"Has Arf been helping with the washing up again?"  William asked,
picking up the giggling Amy.

"It hasn't made her sick yet," Marissa observed comPlacently.

"You look like hell," Lord Weir came out of his study to say to his son
when he heard the front door.  "Come in here."

Jason looked at his father a long moment before he complied.  Lord Weir
closed the door and Jason dropped wearily into a chair.

"Where have you been all night?"

"The hospital," Jason answered.

Lord Weir clenched his jaw as he sat down at his desk.  "I was hoping
you had spent the night in a gaming hell or even a bordello."

Jason laughed in spite of his fatigue.  "So you could have given me a
proper dressing-down.  I see."

"I would not have approved if that's what you mean, but it would have
been healthier for you than haunting the sick wards."

"You have been a long time away from the bordellos if you think
that."

"That's not what I meant, and you know it.  Someone so lately in danger
of doing away with himself should not be dwelling on death, or
worse."

Jason looked up at that.  "How did you know?"  Jason asked in
amazement.

"I know you.  Do you think I am stupid?"

"I think you are much more acute than I ever suspected."

"Then pick yourself a wife and get on with your life."  "I would so
much like to oblige you.  I have always tried to do so, but not this
time.  I cannot marry someone for money.  It would take the heart out
of me."  Besides, now I

know what I want to do."  "And what is that?"  "Go back to school."

"God's death.  You don't need that.  You know twice what most men your
age know."

"I'm going to become a surgeon."

"No!  You'll get no help from me if that is your course."  "I did not
ask for any.  I can get by on my half pay until I finish my studies.
Dr.  Lake has promised to see what he can do for me.  The army always
needs surgeons."

"You don't mean to resign your commission, then?"  "No.  The army is
all I have."  "This will kill your mother."

"She will understand.  It's partly because of her I want to do this.  I
want to understand what happened to her and prevent her ever going
through that again."

"You would do her much more good by settling down at High Stand.  Marry
Cecy or Mrs.  Braidwood.  Either one of them would indulge this fancy
of yours to be a doctor."

"To become what?  A pet of London society pandering to old men who
drink too much 'and bored ladies who are not even ill?  I think not."

"Your mother's illness is real."

"I know that."

"If you follow this course, you may never be able to

"I intend to marry Elizabeth Falcrst."

"I am finished with you then," Lord Weir said, not in anger, but in
that cold, calm voice Jason used to dread so much as a boy.

"Do you want me to move out?"  Jason asked, swallowing hard.

"No.  For your mother's sake we must preserve the semblance of
belonging to the same family."  Lord Weir rose.

"What do you have against Elizabeth, other than her lack of fortune?"
Jason asked in a puzzled way.

"You love her!"."  He made it an accusation so damning Jason could
almost fancy he was talking to Bellecoeur.  "Not only that you love
her, but you love her too much," Lord Weir continued.  "She will
destroy you and it won't be quick, like taking a header out the
schoolroom window or diving into the river."

Jason looked at his father in awestruck horror.

"It will be slow and painful.  And being the man you are, she will
never be able to kill your love for her, so she will go on torturing
you so long as you live."  Lord Weir walked away and closed the door
slowly behind him.  Jason stared out the window.  It was the strangest
thing he had ever heard from his father.  It was not true, of course,
because Elizabeth loved him in return.  But the speech had come from
Lord Weir's heart.  He believed it.  Jason restlessly walked about the
room.

He should have been dropping with fatigue, but his brain was clear.  It
was as though he were in the midst of battle and could not make a
mistake.  With no time to think he could see everything quite clearly.
His father's reaction had hurt him.  Lord Weir had meant it to hurt,
But it had not been unexpected.  Like Em, Lord Weir was used to getting
his own way.  Perhaps the issue that bothered his father was not so
much Elizabeth's lack of fortune as his loss of control over the
situation.  Cecy would be easy to control, unlike Elizabeth.  He wanted
Jason married at High Stand producing grandchildren to carry on the
line, someone to teach more successfully than he had any of his own
sons.  Jason supposed they had all been disappointments to Lord Weir.
With grandsons he could start over, making plans, running their lives.
It was not a pleasant picture.

Also, Elizabeth had caused Jason to defy his father.  Jason had never
done so before, if such a mild scene could be labeled rebellion.  He
had always tried to please his father but had never felt that he
succeeded.  Jason had always wished to be taller, stronger, more like
Geoff.  Now Lord Weir spoke bitterly of the son he used to idolize.
Perhaps his father could never be pleased.  If so, Jason had wasted a
lot of his life trying.  Yet he could not bring himself to regret the
challenges he had undertaken to make his father proud of him.

A return to High Stand might never be allowed.  But Jason knew now that
there was a world outside of the safety of High Stand, outside of its
schoolroom sanctuary.  Jason knew because he had seen it, tramped its
streets and ridden its mountains.  The High Stand he remembered, the
safe refuge, existed now only in his heart and he could let it go.

His father would pout for a while.  He would never come around, admit
defeat.  He would simply rearrange events in his own mind-so that he
felt a moral victory.  And he would not speak of the matter again.
Jason had seen this as a boy and thought it irrational.  Now he
understood and smiled sadly.  It only mattered that he had finally
taken a decisive step into his future.  He had a path now, not a clear
one, not even one that he could see to the end, but it was a future he
could believe in, even if he faced it alone.  But he was not alone.
There was Elizabeth.  Her very name was like a blessing.

He thought of Peter then, and how much strength the dying man had given
him.  He suddenly remembered something he had promised himself he would
do.  He sat at his father's desk, drew a sheet of paper toward him and
began to write.  "Private Peter Wright.  Died August 21, 1815, of
wounds received at Waterloo."

Somehow it did not say enough.  It did not convey anything of the man
or how he had died.  It would not be a grand monument.  It would be the
best Jason could afford.  But what it said was more important than how
it looked.

The door sprang open to admit a harassed-looking footman.  "Oh, sir,
there you are.  The Frenchman--Mr.  Belle-coeur.  He insists on seeing
you."

"Lord, what can he want at this time of day?  He's not drunk, is he?"
Jason asked tiredly.

"No.  He says he will not leave until he sees you."  "Where is he?"

"In the morning room, sir."

Jason loathed the idea of receiving Race in his current disheveled
state.  He toyed for a moment with the idea of keeping the rascal
kicking his heels below stairs while he went up to shave and wash. 
Then it occurred to him that he did not care what Race thought of him.
Also, the blackguard was not above disturbing Jason's mother if she
should come downstairs early.  "Show him in here."  "Yes, sir."

Race's footsteps beat across the hall like a soldier on the march and
they set off that old deadly rhythm within Jason, that call to arms.
But this time there was a purpose, a real war to fight.  No one would
stand in his way.

Race stopped stock-still on the threshold, taking in the obvious fact
that Jason had not slept, at least not at home, and had moreover just
got in.

"Well, what is it?"  Jason barked impatiently, and he was startled to
realize he sounded like a captain again.

Race smiled and strolled into the room with his clean linen and pomaded
hair.  The footman closed the door on him with relief.  Jason pointed
at a chair with the end of the pen as he continued to study the words
on the page before him.

"I see you have not quite recovered from your night out."

"Cut line, Bellecoeur.  This is not a social call, is it?"

"I come to warn you again to stop seeing Elizabeth.  Her mother does
not wish it.  I am here by way of being her emissary in requesting you
to stop paying your addresses to her."

"Do you imagine I don't know how Victoria Falcrest feels about me?  I
don't even blame her, but I cannot stop seeing Elizabeth."

Race controlled his temper with a formal effort.  "I have Elizabeth's
best interests at heart.  I love her and I..."  Race thought of the
promise Victoria Falcrest had extracted from him and winced.  "And I
want to marry her."

"Marry?  You?"

"What is so odd about that?"  Race asked, shaken by Jason's reaction.

"I'm sure if you think for a moment it will occur to yOU."  '

"I know what my reputation is.  That will change.  I will never want
another woman.  Elizabeth is perfect, an angel."

"Actually she's not.  You have some odd ideas about women if you think
she will float ethereally around your house while you are out
gutter-crawling.  She would never put up with you."

"You are a fine one to talk," Race shouted, jumping to his feet.

"Are you finished?  I have work to do."

"Work?  Yes, you will have to work, won't you, if you marry Elizabeth?
I hear that your father does not approve of the match any more than her
mother.  Elizabeth is more or less penniless."

"I know," said Jason, and smiled.

"You will drag her down with you when such a woman should never know
care or want."

"Care and want and the sharing of them bind two people together much
tighter than comfort and riches."

"Why should she have to endure that?  If she truly cannot like me,
there are a dozen other men who would offer for her, who have offered
for her.  Why would she choose you if not out of pity?"

Jason looked at him for a frozen moment.  It was a suspicion that had
occurred to him many times when he was alone, but never when he was
with Elizabeth.  He had only to think of her to feel the strength, the
certainty, of her love flowing into him.

"I don't honestly know," he said to Race in some amazement.  "I may
never understand Elizabeth.  I'm not sure I want to.  But I know you
are wrong."

"And Elizabeth does not understand you--a soldier, first and foremost,
a murderer.  Don't forget, I have seen you in a killing rage."

"I would never hurt Elizabeth.  It's not possible."

"Not in your right senses, perhaps, but drunk?  You know in your heart
what I am saying is true."  Race's voice was at its most seductive.
"Elizabeth's life would be in danger if she married you.  If she ever
angered you..."

"I do not believe even you have ever seen me really angry," Jason said
as he rose slowly.  "But you will in another moment if you do not
leave."

Race stomped out of the room and the house.  Jason looked back at the
paper before him.  It did not say enough.  He remembered so vividly
Wright's initial fear, and the peace he had come to before he breathed
his last.  Jason added, "He did not die alone."

What others would think of it did not matter.  It said what Jason
needed to say.

Chapter Thirteen

Clive left for Brussels with Tony, and Elizabeth sat herself down to
wait.  She did not look to see them for a week or more, but a week was
only a week and then it would all be over.  Or rather one of her
problems would be solved.  But Jason had finally accepted that they
could have a future together.  With that assurance she felt she could
face anything.  She did not have the lYe an for shopping though, so
that when the Falcrest ladies left the house she was the only one home.
She had told Race she never wanted to see him again, but he still spoke
to her, goaded her in public.  It never occurred to her it would be
necessary to tell the servants not to admit him.  And there he was,
walking into the morning room, looking romantically brooding.  "What
are you doing here?"

"I came to apologize," he said, looking truly repentant.  "For lying to
me about Jason?  I knew you were lying."  "Elizabeth, I was three-parts
drunk.  I scarcely remember what I said, except that it hurt you.  I so
often do that, hurt people I love."

"Such as?"

"What?  I meant my mother.  There is no one else."  He took an
uncertain step toward her.

Elizabeth laughed a little at him.  "You will never change, will
you?"

"I can change.  I will stop drinking."

Elizabeth smirked and looked speculatively at him.

"I mean to excess."

"Frankly I can never tell when you are drunk or not.  You seem to me to
get into just as much trouble when you are sober."

"Sometimes I am drunk on passion," he said, advancing toward her.

She rose and threw up her hand to stop him.  "Give it up.  I am in love
with someone else.  You must stop trying to see me."

"But your mother gave her permission."

"An antiquated custom.  I will speak to her about it."

"I suppose I will only make myself ridiculous if I continue to pursue
you."

"No, but you will make me hate you.  I had rather part friends.  Even
now you can still lift my spirits and make me laugh."

"Then I am some use to you."  Race turned and wandered to the window.
"I was wondering if Clive has had any word of his friend that he has
been searching for?"

"He's gone to Belgium with Charlie's brother.  It's the last hope they
have."

"I'm surprised neither of them has ever checked the Greenwich Hospital.
Did they ever mention that one?"

"N , they never did.  They couldn't possibly have missed it," Elizabeth
said, puzzled.

"You can ask."

"I won't see Jason until--is it far?"

"No, I can take you there now if you like."

Elizabeth glanced out the window to see Race's dancing team of
chestnuts being calmed by a groom.  She had often driven behind that
team and the opportunity to take some effective action was tempting.

"Why would you offer to take me?"

"It's only that I see all this feverish activity and there is nothing I
can do to help."

"Let's go then.  I have not been able to do anything myself.  At least
we can look in this one place."

Race drove her eastward, winding his way expertly through the city.  It
was only when they crossed the fiver that Elizabeth felt some qualms
about trusting herself to Race so completely.

"Just where are we going?"  she inquired suspiciously.  "Greenwich."

"Oh, that's fight," she said, subsiding once again into her study of
the streets.

They came finally to a sign that read Royal Naval Hospital.

"But this place is for seamen--Charlie will never be here."

"It does not hurt to ask."

The proprietors thought it was a little odd them asking, since no
wounded had been brought there.  Why should they be, since the
Greenwich Hospital was more a home for disabled and retired seamen than
a place of medicine?

Elizabeth was So embarrassed she was quite angry and got back into the
phaeton without even thinking.

"You might have asked ahead of time."

"I only wanted to help.  Don't I get any credit for that?"  She looked
at him sharply, then at the streets through which they were passing. It
Was an older section of the city, still respectable, but with no
squares or parks.

"Where are we?  I have never been here before."

"I thought we might stop for some refreshment.  I own a house
hereabouts..."

"How dare you?  And to what purpose?  Jason will kill you if you do not
take me straight home."

"Will he really?  His attachment to you must be greater than I
imagined."  Race looked her over wickedly.

"Take me home," Elizabeth commanded with all the determination she
could muster.  An angry flush had crept into her cheeks.

Besieged

"Of course, I will take you home ... eventually."

"I hate you for doing this!  I'll hate you forever."

This pronouncement sounded so childlike it drew a laugh from Race. "No,
I think you will see reason."

"You are so stupid.  I told you I do not love you."  "Yes, you do.  You
must!"  Race almost shouted.  Suddenly Elizabeth thought of the groom,
but when she whirled to beseech him for help she discovered that he was
not there, although he had been with them at the hospital.  She had not
noticed that he did not swing himself up behind the phaeton when they
got under way again.

"Almost there," Race said, and Elizabeth knew she must do something to
get away from him before he had servants about him who might not be
willing to help her.  It did not occur to her that servants were the
last thing Race wanted.  He had counted on Elizabeth's good breeding to
keep her from making a scene.  His intentions were not entirely
dishonorable.  He wanted only to keep her in his company until the next
morning.  That should be sufficient to force her into marriage for the
sake of her reputation.  If he managed to seduce her in that time all
the better, but he would not take her by force.

Elizabeth saw her chance and made as if to leap from the phaeton.

"Stop!  You'll be killed," Race shouted, grabbing her arm and dropping
one rein.  This caused the team to turn.  Without a groom or some other
assistance he could not recover the rein, especially not as he was
struggling with Elizabeth.  He managed to pull her back onto the seat
but got himself slewed around in the process so that he was kneeling in
the foot space.  Elizabeth kicked him out of sheer anger but, coming
unexpectedly as it did, it was enough to tip him out of the phaeton in
a somersault.  He landed on his shoulder and let go of the other rein.
The horses-bolted.  They were high-strung to begin with and were used
to being kept under tight control, not to having reins slapping and all
sorts of shouting going on behind them.

"Elizabeth!"  Race shouted in despair as his team carried her down the
street.  Elizabeth snatched at the reins whenever they flew at her but
had no luck in grabbing them.  She thought again about jumping out but
they were going far too fast now.  She remembered Marissa's advice in
case she ever found herself on a runaway horse.  "Stay on at any cost.
If you come off at full tilt you will break something.  Eventually the
horse will run out of steam and slow down.  Then you can control
him."

So Elizabeth hung on and hoped that Race's team was not too fresh.  She
braced herself in case the phaeton should tip sideways taking one of.
the turns in the crazy quilt of streets they were running into.  She
thought of shouting for help, but no one on the street would be able to
halt the team without being trampled.  Then the street was blocked by
two carrier's carts and Elizabeth braced for a crash.  But the horses
were not stupid.  They saw they had no place to go and reared to a
halt.

"Quick!  Catch the reins for me," Elizabeth demanded of a tradesman. He
got the left rein and brought it back to her.  The team began to turn
left and she feared they would be off again before she could possess
herself of the other rein, but an ehterprising boy grabbed it and
handed it up to her.  She tugged back in a sawing motion as she had
watched C!I've do many times, and talked soothingly to the horses.
"Now, which.  way is Portman Square?"  she demanded, forcing herself to
be calm.

The tradesman mutely pointed west, which was of little help to
Elizabeth, who could not see the other side of the street clearly.  She
let the horses finish their turn, sawing more on the left rein than the
right but keeping a firm hold on both.  She had no whip but would not
know what to do with it if she had.  She had never had the confidence
to learn to drive and to be trying it with a hot team in a strange part
of the city was not the wisest thing.  But Elizabeth was in despair
that Race would somehow come up with her.  So far from worrying about
getting lost, she made every effort to zigzag her way west, trying to
look not so very noticeable.  The team seemed willing to trot for a
time, and even though her arms ached frightfully after only a few
minutes she thought she could do it.

The Elizabeth of a few years ago would have stopped and begged someone
to go to William and bring him to her, but she hated to admit she had
been a fool, to ask for help at a task C!I've did every day of the
week.  And if Marissa could drive, so could she.

She racked her brains to call to mind all the boring talk she had heard
between William and Marissa when he had been teaching her.  There were
only two reins.  The left made the left horse turn; the right made the
fight horse turn.  The harness tied them together at the bit, so that
they turned each other.  It was almost like riding except that it took
a great deal more strength to turn them or stop them.

Elizabeth discovered that her frequent turns, besides hopefully
throwing Race off her trail, kept the team to a trot whereas her aching
arms might not have.  She came to a street that followed the fiver and
remembered she had to cross it.  They had come across Westminster
Bridge earlier in the day.  If she crossed there she would be driving
through St.  James almost at dusk and a woman simply did not drive
through St.  James alone at any time There were too many men's clubs
and park saunterers.

Blackfriars Bridge would be better if she had not passed it and if she
could find it.  The worst part was not seeing anything the slightest
bit familiar.  But then, she could get lost in her own neighborhood if
she got her directions confused.  In the end she reined in and asked a
boy.  He gave her useful and succinct directions.  She thanked him and
drove on.  Really, except for being tired, there was not all that much
to this driving.  She could get to like it if she had someone to go
with her.  Once across the bridge she had only to turn left on High
Holborn Street.  It would lead her to Oxford Street and almost home.
But she had no idea where to turn.  When she feared she had overshot it
she stopped again for directions, getting a queer look this time from a
clerk.  She made a succession of lefts and found the street.  By now
her hands were cramping.  She really must ask Clive how he drove for
hours at a time without any apparent discomfort.

"Where the devil can she be?"  William asked for the tenth time.

"Here comes Jason.  He may have news," Marissa said as she paced to the
window.

"He has not taken her home with him," Jason reported after James had
shown him in.  "None of his servants have seen him since this afternoon
and his team is not back yet.  I checked the stable myself."

"I didn't expect she was there."

"How can you take this so calmly, Marissa?"  William accused.

"I am pacing and Victoria is wringing her hands.  I don't see what more
we can do.  Perhaps they have only gone for a drive."

"For five hours?"  William asked.

"Racine would never do Elizabeth any harm," Victoria said.  "He is in
love with her."

"But that's stupid," Jason said.  "She said she never wanted to see him
again.  Why would she get into his carriage with him unless she had a
compelling reason?"

"Perhaps they have eloped," Victoria suggested.  This notion brought
such a universal groan and glare that she said no more.

"Was it James who saw them leave?  Can we talk to him again?"  Jason
begged.

"Yes, sir," James answered, frowning now with worry.  "She seemed
willing enough to go with him.  He had a

Besieged groom up behind.  I'm sorry, but he has taken Miss Elizabeth
driving many times.  I never thought there was anything wrong."

"It's all right, James," Marissa said.  "Probably they have had a
breakdown."

No one really believed this, not even the harassed foot marl

"That's Race's team," Marissa shouted from the window, then beat the
men to the door.  They all ran out after her.  Jason had the presence
of mind to go to the horses' heads, for there was obviously no groom
now.  It took a few minutes of Elizabeth answering everyone's anxious
questions and being helped down by William for Jason to realize that
there was not any Race, either.  By then William's grooms had come
around to take charge of the team.

"I don't understand," Jason said.  "What happened to Race?"

"Oh, I suppose he will turn up eventually," Elizabeth said tiredly. "He
was teaching me to drive."

Jason looked at her a little dubiously, but she sent him such a
pleading look he merely nodded.  Only Marissa and he could know in what
danger she had truly been and he admired Elizabeth even more for not
wanting to worry William or her mother.

"He certainly has taught you," agreed Marissa.  "Where did you ditch
him?"

"He fell out someplace on the South Bank but I don't think he was
seriously hurt."

Jason chuckled a little at this, pulling a tired smile from Elizabeth
as he took her arm.  He could feel her trembling and wished he could
hug her to him.

"I want the whole story," William demanded as Jason helped Elizabeth up
the steps.

"Not now," Marissa warned.  "Can't you see she's exhausted and
chilled?"

Jason and William waited helplessly downstairs while Marissa and
Victoria put Elizabeth to bed.

Marissa finally came down to give them a report.  "She booted him out
of his own phaeton when he got overly passionate," she informed them
with a grin.  "Oh, how I Would like to see him now."

"What about the groom?"  Jason asked.

"She didn't say."

Like an answer to Marissa's wish, the knocker fell urgently on the door
and she rushed to open it herself, discomposing James even more.  The
footman had witnessed Elizabeth's return with relief and was still
hanging nervously about.

Race strode in, hatless, bruised, ripped and dirty.

All four of them raised an eyebrow at him.

"Elizabeth!  She isn't here, by chance?"  Race asked dis-traughtly.

James saw no need to answer him quickly so he stepped forward to
relieve Race of the long driving whip he was still ridiculously
clutching.  "Allow me, sir.  Your hat?"  James asked as if he were
demanding that Race produce one.

"Hat?  Hat?  What do I care about a hat?  I've lost Elizabeth."

"She's here," Marissa said, finally taking pity on him.  "But chance
had nothing to do with it.  She found her own way home."

"Thank God!  I was imagining all sorts of disasters.  I thought she
might be dead."  Race leaned against the hall table but no one made a
move to invite him to sit down.  James stood at attention by the door
in case he should be needed to throw the fellow out.

"You have a lot of explaining to do," William said heavily.  "Marissa,
leave us."

"Are you going to beat him, William?  For if you are--" "Marissa!" 
"Oh, very well," she said reluctantly as she went up the stairs.

"So you were teaching her to drive," William scoffed.

"I should have thought she would come to Jason or Clive for that sort
of instruction."

"Drive?  You don't mean she drove my team?"  "Yes," said Jason, unable
to keep his lips from curling.  "Brought them back in prime fettle, not
a mark on them and not even sweated.  I suppose she will be wanting to
set up a stable of her own now."

William and Race both gaped at him.

"She couldn't possibly have driven that team the whole way from
Greenwich!  It was a runaway!"

"She managed, no thanks to you," Jason said.  "You underestimate her in
many ways."

"Is this your story?  You were teaching her to drive?"  William
demanded.

"Uh, yes," Race said, suddenly turning red in the face.  "Well, keep
away from her from now on.  You can come and get your team tomorrow. Go
around to the stable.  Don't come to the house.  Do I make myself
clear?"

"Yes," Race mumbled, turning to go.

"Your whip, sir," James said, supplying Race with this article, which
he took rather distractedly as he went out the door.  The hackney Race
had arrived in was waiting impatiently for him.  James dusted his hands
and went downstairs with a smile of satis.  faction.

"You don't believe that tale, do you?"  William inquired.  "No, and if
you do I have a spavined horse I want to sell you," Jason said with a
wry smile.  "But I think we had better hope everyone else believes it,
so I intend to go along with it."

"Yes, of course.  I was so angry I wasn't thinking."  "I'm just glad
Clive was not here.  He has such a short fuse, he would have murdered
Bellecoeur outright.  But you cavalry boys always do.  Now an artillery
man learns to think under fire and not panic.  I wonder how Elizabeth
learned the trick of that?  Race is right.  She might very well have
been killed today."

"Yes, and she makes light of it," William said, looking up at the
ceiling as he heard his wife's voice overhead.  "Well, she is a
Falcrest.  Do you want to talk to her?"

"I should think she has had enough of talk for today."

"I just thought perhaps she would tell you the truth.  It touches you
more than anyone if Race has..."

"I don't think we have that worry.  If Elizabeth does tell me Race has
seduced her, I will pulp him."

"You will have to stand in line."

"But it won't make any difference in the way I feel about her, except
perhaps to make me push forward our plans a little.  I have not had a
chance to speak to you yet..."

"Time enough for that when you have settled what you mean to do.  It's
Victoria who will be the problem."

"I know.  Elizabeth says she can handle her.  I begin to believe
her."

Race appeared at the next assembly but held off from the Falcrest
party, only glancing in their direction when he thought no one would
notice.

He spent the whole evening watching for an opportunity to speak to
Elizabeth alone.  He would not have got one if

Jason had not had to hare off after Em.

"Elizabeth."

"I don't want to talk to you."

"I want to apologize."

"Again?  I don't think I can survive another one of your apologies."
She turned a cold, composed shoulder to him.  "But I had a reason for
stealing you away," he pleaded.  "I should say abducting me against my
will and I can guess the reason.  If you had managed to ruin me you
think I would have married you.  You are wrong."  She faced him with
this assertion.

"Think about why I did it and you will know what I am," he said
darkly.

"I know what you are," whispered Elizabeth.

"I did it because I could not have you the normal way.

Nothing has ever been beyond my reach before.  But you are so much
better than me."  He looked up as though searching the ceiling for
words.  "I cannot believe you do not love me when I love you so
much."

"I care about you, Race.  I worry about what will become of you.  But I
cannot love you."

"I must love someone!"  he said desperately.  "If you reject me I must
find someone else to love.  I cannot be without that.  And you will
have to watch."

"You should find someone else, someone who will return your love,"
Elizabeth reasoned.

"How?  How do I find someone who will love me and not my money?  How
will I ever be sure?  I was sure of -you.  If you are willing to throw
yourself away on that soldier then you could have no interest in my
fortune."  "Why do you have such co tempt for Jason?"  "He is a
soldier.  I hate them all."

"Why?  Because they fought against France?"

"No, because I envy them.  Because they have something I can never
have.  I missed my chance."

"You are a strange one," she whispered.

"What do you mean?"

"People think you a great deal more evil than you really are, and they
think me a great deal better than I can possibly be.  I am frustrated
by their lack of perception--you relish it."

Race looked at her with some sort of understanding in his eyes.

"That is why I can speak the truth to you," she continued.  "What a
strange sort of friendship."

"That is all it is then?"  he asked darkly.  "You understand me, but
you can't love me all the same.  Why should that surprise me?"  he
asked, turning away.  "Even the worst of them cannot really love me,
how could I expect the best woman, the most perfect woman, to love
me?"

"But I could have--" Elizabeth blurted out then stopped herself as Race
spun to confront her.

"I know, if Jason had not come along."  His dark eyes burned deep under
his brows.

Elizabeth looked at him with fear and Race smiled.  "Finally I have
made you afraid.  I am satisfied."  "Wait, what do you mean to do?"

He took her hand quite gently, at odds with the destructive look in his
eyes.  "If I can't have you, then, by God, he won't have you, either,"
he vowed.

Elizabeth snatched her hand back as though he meant to offer her
violence at that moment.  "No, I beg of you."  "I shall get rid of him.
I shall find a way."  "Race, no!"

He left her then more fearful than she could remember being in her
entire life.  Elizabeth had let her still lively sympathy for Race make
trouble again.  She thought since they had turned his abduction into a
joke he would give up on her.  Now she had only made things worse.

geady for your drive now, Mother?"  Jason asked when he returned from
the hospital.

"No.  I sent Em off with her maid and the shopping list.

I want to talk to you alone."

"Is something wrong?"

"Jason, there is something I thought I would never have to tell you,
but it may be a necessity now."

"You have not started on laudanum again?"  he asked abruptly.

"Oh, if only it were that."

"Mother, what is it?  I have not seen you so distressed in weeks."

"Your fa--John has invited them here again, the More-fords."

"You can keep to your bed then, if they upset you."  "You don't
understand.  He has not given up on you marrying Cecy.  He told
Moreford she was afraid of you and the man says she is just shy.  I
fear they are expecting you to make her an offer."

"They can expect all they want.  I will never marry her."

This seemed to calm Lady Weir.  "Jason, there are several other women
you must never marry."

"Yes, Mother.  Tomorrow you can make me a list.  Have you had your
medicine yet?"

"Don't humor me!"  she snapped.  "John does that to me all the time and
I hate it."

"And I thought I knew how to handle patients."  "Jason, you are quite
sure he won't trap you into this marriage?"  She scanned his face
anxiously.  "He will use the most underhanded inducements."

"He has already washed his hands of me.  What more can he do?"

"He will say anything, lie, to get you to do this and you must not let
him force you into this match.  That is what happened to me and it was
a disaster."

Jason looked at his mother in sympathy.  "I understand, finally.  I
wish there was something I could do for you."

"I don't care about myself anymore.  It's you and Em that I live for
now."

"Don't worry.  He may think he has me over a barrel.  He doesn't know I
could live off the land and my wits if I had to."

"But he always wins.  He always gets his way."  The helplessness of her
plea struck Jason to the heart.  He hated to think that his mother felt
so trapped.

"Not this time, Mother."

"John and I have not always got along."

"Yes, I remember some of your rows," he said, rolling his eyes at
her.

"It was an arranged marriage.  I had another attachment, but over the
years I grew accustomed to John, and had almost resigned myself.  Then
he invited someone to a hunt ... the man I loved, and it was as though
I were a girl again.  I loved him still.  If he had asked I would have
left

Alton and Geoffrey in their cradles and gone with him."  "This was
before my time then."

"Well, you might say it was at your time."

Jason looked confusedly at his mother until her meaning slipped home,
then he went down on his knees by the day-bed as though someone had
buried a knife in his stomach.  He had thought life had lost its
ability to shock him.  He saw now that he had been mistaken.  If he had
looked for another crushing blow he would not have expected it to be
delivered by his mother.  "So that is why I don't look like either of
you."

"Yes, nor are you like us in character."

"Em?"  he said, thinking of her guinea gold hair and blue eyes.

His mother flushed.  "She is B!yly's child, as well."  "Does F-Father
know?"  he stammered.

"Of course not.  How could I tell him?  And you must never speak of it,
either.  You see now why you cannot marry Cecy, don't you?"

"Cecy?  What has she to do with it?"

"Jason, she is your sister, well--half sister."

It took Jason a moment to digest this.  "But that's impossible.  Why
then would Father propose the match if he knows Cecy is his child?"

"You are getting it confused.  I was the one who was unfaithful, not
your father."

"Oh, right."

"Both you and Cecy were fathered by Lord Blyly.  You don't remember
him, do you?"

"No."  Just when Jason's life was beginning to fall into place it had
been blown apart as surely as if a French shell had tom him limb from
limb.

"He is dead now and I love him still.  But to confess to your father!
Do not ask it of me Jason--I simply cannot."

"There is no need.  I will not marry Cecy ... or anyone else."

"You don't hate me?"

"Not possible," he said, taking her hand and kissing it.

"I thought I had better tell you in case anything happened to me."

"Nothing is going to happen to you.  Everything will go on just as
before."

"Jason, you must watch out for Em."

"Of course, oh, you mean who she marries?"

"Yes.  I will give you a list so that she does not make a misstep.  But
you must never tell her."

"I won't.  Sleep now."

"But Jason, he will be so angry with you."

"Don't concern yourself."  He had risen to go but turned back at the
door.  "Mother, if you loved Lord B!yly..."

"Yes, very much, dear.  He has been dead these ten years and I love him
still."

"And Father?"  he faltered.

"It was an arranged marriage.  I could not refuse him."  "But he is
devoted to you."

"It has been my greatest torture that I have never been able to return
that love."

"And his," Jason whispered to himself as he left.

It all made sense now, the distance Lord Weir had always kept between
them.  As a child Jason soon learned not to carry anything to his
father for approval, not to rival his brothers in any skill, for Lord
Weir would only find something else to criticize.  Jason worked at
whatever he was doing until he was satisfied himself.  That had to be
enough for him, as he knew he could never gain his father's approval.
Now he knew why and he felt an unaccountable sadness for the lonely.
boy he had been.

If this had made him appear quiet and secretive he could not help it.
He had thought at the time that Lord Weir had merely wearied of raising
boys.  Now it appeared he must have suspected Jason was not his son.
Lady Weir in her tight little world could not know her secret was not
safe.

Jason was not happy with his new knowledge, even though it explained
much.  But why had his father then offered him the running of High
Stand?  It made no sense.  It seemed as though he should rather support
Jason's bid for independence so he could be rid of him.  Jason was too
weary to wrestle with the problem of his father's motivations.  He had
a much greater one to deal with.  There was no honorable way he could
continue in his engagement to Elizabeth without telling her the
truth.

There was a party that night at the Falcrests', their last of the
season.  They were expecting Clive back from Brussels momentarily, but
even if he did not arrive until the next day it might be Jason's last
chance to talk to Elizabeth for some weeks since they were planning to
return to West-bourne Place.  He screwed up his courage and went.

Race was there, no longer persona non grata at Falcrest House.  William
decided not to bar him from the place if he wanted the driving lesson
story to be believed.  In truth Elizabeth had been recognized by half a
dozen people as she drove down Oxford Street in a state of extreme
concentration.  She was now suffering the embarrassment of being
congratulated on her handling of the reins by one of her former
beaux.

Jason could not keep his eyes off Elizabeth.  She was wearing the first
dress he had ever seen her in, the spangled gauze that made her look
like a fairy queen.  Her eyes sparkled as much as the dress, perhaps
too much.  Was there a film of tears in them?  Her gaiety seemed so
desperately forced.  She saw him and glanced away.

Jason escaped down the main hall and out the back door once he had
placed Em under Marissa's watchful scrutiny.  He was almost glad
Elizabeth had not come up to him tonight.  He was not at all sure he
had the courage to say what needed to be said.  Also he was still
puzzling over her sudden awkwardness around him.  Futilely he searched
the past few days for some event that might have cooled her love.  Of
course, he had just discovered he was a bastard.  Could his mother have
let something slip to Elizabeth?  As distraught as Lady Weir had been
it was just possible.  If it mattered that much to Elizabeth, then he
would release her.  It never occurred to him to keep it from her.

Jason was uncomfortable in his tight evening coat and was beginning to
sweat, even outside where it was a little cooler.  He would have liked
to remove the thing but was not sure of being able to shrug himself
back into it.  He had just turned toward the stable when a curricle and
pair drove in.

"C!I've!  Tony!  Any news?"

"Keep away from me, you vulture," Tony mouthed.  "What?"

"I'm sorry," Clive said.  "Since we had decided to give up the search I
mentioned that at least now you and Elizabeth can marry."

"Charlie is dead then?"  Jason whispered.

"You would love that, wouldn't you?"  Tony asked bitterly.  "You want
to know for certain that he is dead so you can steal Elizabeth with a
clear conscience."

"You know about the engagement?"

"How could you?  How could Elizabeth?  You only helped me look for
Charlie to make sure he was dead."

"That's not true.  I want Charlie to be alive just as much as you
do."

"Not bloody likely when it would mean you couldn't marry your precious
Elizabeth.  Well, nothing stands in your way now."

"More stands in the way than ever," Jason said almost to himself.

"Trying to convince me you have a conscience?  You soldiers!  To think
I admired you, wanted to be like you.  You are a soulless lot.  I wager
your regret doesn't last until I've driven out of the yard."  As though
to demonstrate, Tony jumped into the curricle that his groom had turned
and whipped the team forward, almost leaving the man behind.

"He didn't mean it, Jason."

"It doesn't matter, Clive."

"You're still going to marry her, aren't you?"

"I suppose I had better try to talk to her ... and see what Em is up
to."

"Elizabeth's ardor seems to have cooled toward you," Bellecoeur said,
making Jason flinch and give up his in

Besieged spection of the ballroom to confront that saturnine face.

"If she's smart, she won't have either of us," Jason surprised himself
by saying.

"She will have me in the end."

"I don't think so.  Elizabeth is stronger than that."  "What do you
know of her?  You don't know her at all, I tell you.  She talks to me.
Everyone thinks she is so perfect.  But she is not.  To me she reveals
her darker side."

"I know she's not perfect," Jason said desperately.  "She told me
so."

"Exactly.  She told you.  She did not demonstrate."

"If I were you I would stop there," Jason warned.  He could feel the
blood pounding in his veins already.

"She has to marry me now.  I have had her.  She may even carry my
child."

"You are a liar," Jason scoffed.

"Ask her."

"You think everyone is stupid enough to fall into your traps?"

"It doesn't matter," Bellecoeur said, taking a different tack.  "If you
don't give her up I will set the story about.  Then she will have to
marry me.  No one else would have her."

"I would."

"Even if it was true?"  "Even if it was true."  "You are a fool
then."

"And you are a madman.  If you can't have her you will ruin her out of
spite.  Is it Elizabeth you want or just to beat me?"

"I love her."

"Where's the virtue in that?  Everyone loves her.  They can't help
it."

"Leave her alone.  If you don't you will both regret it.  This is my
last warning," Race said as pushed himself away from the column.

"Most likely that's true, but I must speak to her once more," Jason
said to himself.

He tried to compose in his mind what he would say to her, but it was no
good.  There was no gentle way to break such news.  Finally he went
back into the ballroom to locate Elizabeth and watched her waltzing
with another man.  His scrutiny was so intense, the music finished
before he realized Em had been waltzing with Bellecoeur.  And there was
C!I've stoking for a fight.  He was glaring at the couple, downing one
glass of wine after another.  Jason arrived at his side and took the
last from him, setting it carefully on the table.  "Take my advice and
keep your head tonight.  Bellecoeur is trying to provoke you or me.
Apparently it doesn't matter to him which it is."

"How do you know?"

"Because he's done it to me before.  It's a skill he has.  And no one
likes fisticuffs at these affairs except the gossips."

"One day he will go too far."

"Without a doubt.  Let's hope it is in a less public place."

"He kissed her!  Did you see that?"  Clive lurched forward and shrugged
off Jason's restraining hand.

"Clive, don't.  You will ruin Em if you make an issue of it here."

Clive threw up his hand in disregard as he stalked up to Bellecoeur.
Jason saw a brief bitter exchange of words between the two men, which
people could not help but notice.  It suddenly occurred to Jason that
Clive was in more danger from Bellecoeur than Em.  Jason did not think
Bellecoeur had any real designs on his sister.  He only wanted to
demonstrate his power.  But he was accounted to be a crack shot and he
had been out twice, nearly killing one of his opponents.  Clive's
injury would not protect him from Race's temper.

It was time the Weirs left London, Jason decided.  Mother was certainly
better and that was why they had come.  They would go back to High
Stand and everything would be as it was.  He would be back in his
redoubt.  Em and Clive would be safe.  And Elizabeth--Elizabeth and all
his other London friends would be as though they had never existed.

"I won't be told what I may or may not do by you, Clive Falcrest," Em
said as she made her way past Jason and tramped up the stairs.

Marissa saw Jason and demanded that he waltz with her since it was to
be their last party of the season.  She entreated him to come and talk
to William and to make it up with Elizabeth, whatever it was.

She left him then, slightly dizzy from all the spinning.  The crowd
parted and Elizabeth was standing not twenty feet away.  She came to
him not with joy, or longing, not even with relief.  She walked to him
as though she had no choice.  It would be remarked on if she turned her
back on him.  He swallowed a hard lump.  Whatever stood between them
had to be serious.  Perhaps Clive had told her about giving up the
search and the scene in the stable yard.  Sweet, sensitive Elizabeth
could never stand Tony's condemnation.

"You are dancing tonight."

"It only makes me a little dizzy now," he said, laughing nervously.
"Usually I am so busy watching Em..."  "Where is she then?"

"Upstairs--a headache, I think.  Is it any wonder?  She has been going
at a mad pace.  And she is really only a child."

"Whatever Em is, she is not a child," Elizabeth said,

trying to turn the conversation into a safe channel.  "Yes, I know." 
He fell silent.

"I meant to tell you, I am going into the country for a few weeks--not
to Westbourne Place, but to Burcombe Farm with Clive."

"Yes.  Elizabeth, is something wrong?"  He looked at her searchingly
and she dropped her eyes.

"No, of course not.  I just thought as nothing was happening it would
do no harm to visit with Clive for a while.  You have enough to keep
you busy."

"I was hoping to have something definite to tell you, but a matter has
come up, a family matter..."

"Your mother?"  Elizabeth looked at him then with real concern and her
old warmth.

"In a way.  It may make a difference to you, in whether you still want
me for a husband or not."

"Jason, I do not think such disorders are hereditary."  "No, I suppose
not."  He looked away, biting his lip.  Elizabeth caught sight of Race
watching them intently and her fears for Jason's safety must have been
readable on her face.

"What is it?  You looked suddenly so frightened."  Jason reached for
her hand and she gave it reluctantly, afraid for Race to see even that
intimacy.

"I think I have a touch of the headache myself.  I will see you in a
few weeks then."  She slipped her cold hand out of his and fled from
him.  He could not help but notice that she no longer wore his ring.

Jason had wanted to tell her the awful truth, but if there was a time
to drop that load on her it was surely not tonight.  He had never known
her to act so strangely.  The suspicion that she was having second
thoughts clutched at his heart.  Perhaps Victoria had finally got
through to her and she now regretted her secret commitment to him. They
were wise to have kept it a secret.  They could merely let their love
grow cool between them and remain distant friends.  That was how
Elizabeth felt to him, suddenly quite cool and distant, more so than
when they had just been getting acquainted.  So that was how it would
happen, not a blazing argument, not a passionate lover's parting, not
even an explanation, just a vague promise to see him and, if he had
gone back to High Stand with his family, it was a promise she would not
even have to keep.

He had never felt so empty in his life.  Nothing mattered to him now,
not the loss of an eye, not becoming a doctor,

Besieged not his family, which was not really his family anymore.  It
only mattered that he had lost Elizabeth, and he had done it numbly,
without ever realizing how or why.  He told himself that it was better
this way.  His illegitimacy was just one more reason they should not
marry.  At least it was one he would not have to confess to her.  Why
had he ever thought she could be his?

Elizabeth had cost him as deeply as she had given.  After her there
could be no other woman, not for money or pleasure, not even in name
only.  If he could not have her, he was indeed alone.

He wandered from the room with a terdble and ridiculous craving for
something to smoke.

Race was distraught to discover that he had not been able to warn Jason
off Elizabeth with threats, or otherwise drive him from town by playing
up to Em.  He decided to put his final plan into action.  He had seen
Em go upstairs.  He had only to find her and lure her to his carriage.
The rest would be easy.

Jason saw Clive waiting in the front foyer.

"Is Em still upstairs?"  Jason asked tiredly.  "I am ready to take her
home."

"Yes, but she has been gone so long.  You don't suppose she is ill, or
something."

"Angry, more like."

"I'll get Marissa.  She will know where Em might be."

"You could look for her yourself, Clive," Marissa said laughingly as
she went up the stairs.  "You do live here."

Marissa returned after five minutes, looking quite puzzled.  "She's not
in any of the rooms.  She wouldn't have gone down the back stairs,
would she?"

"Why, she was not that upset, to run off," Clive said.  "I'll look
around back anyway," Jason offered.

"We'll all look," Madssa said, preceding them down the main hall and
out the back door.

A rapid interrogation of the link boys elicited the information that a
girl had got into the carriage with Belle-coeur's crest on it.

"Oh, my God!  He's taken Era!  He must have," Jason said.  "Where else
would she be?"

"It must be Scotland," Clive said as though he had solved a great
puzzle.

"Why would you think they would go there?"  Jason asked.

"Because, simpleton, there is no place in England where he could hope
to marry a girl so young."

"If you imagine he means mardage, you are the--never mind.  You may
drive to Scotland for all I care.  For my money he has not taken her
there, nor even to the coast.  I do not think he has gone very far with
her at all."

"I have no patience with you, Jason.  You are dead wrong.  Stay and
talk all you want.  I must get a team harnessed and go after them."
Clive limped off to the stable prepared to drive the hundreds of miles
to Gretna Green for another man's sister, even though he had just
returned from Belgium.

"Go then!"  Jason shouted after him.  "At least you will be safe, you
fool--Marissa, I need to borrow a horse."  "Take Bedlam.  He's good for
two hours."

A few minutes later Jason trotted around the house on Marissa's great
gray colt and accosted a man in Belle-coeur's livery who was hanging
about in front.  Jason could not help but notice hgw easy it was to
bribe him into telling him what road Bellecoeur's carriage had taken.
Lord, the fellow had been waiting for him.  Jason flipped him a
shilling and took the Dover road as directed.  It did occur to him that
it would serve Race right if he left Em on his hands for a day or two.
But he could not, and he must get her home well before morning.

He did not change horses after the first hour since Bedlam still seemed
fresh, but after another forty minutes he was just wondering if he
should not have sought another mount at the last posting house when he
came up with a traveling chaise of such ornate design it could only
belong to Bellecoeur.  He picked his place, a widening of the road,
closed the gap with the carriage, and dragged the lead post boy from
his perch.  He then snatched the leaders' reins and pulled to the
right, forcing the whole equipage off the road and causing a great deal
of confusion when the leader got a leg over the traces.  Jason
dismounted, heard a strangled Em, and yanked the door open, almost
pull-the coach.

out of the carriage and said, "You will meet

"Help!"  from ing Race from

Race sprang me for this."

"No, I will the cravat and meet you for this."  Jason grabbed him by
punched him in the face.  Race sprawled in the middle of the dusty
road.  "Those should have been your second words, not your first.  How
did you know I was not a highwayman?"

"Jason!  Jason!"  Em came tumbling out of the carriage and into his
arms.

"Little imp!  Did he hurt you?"  "No, I kicked him."  "Good for you,
Em."

"That little cat.  Do you know what she did?"

"You have nothing to complain of and a great deal to answer for." Jason
advanced on Race again but was blocked by one of Bellecoeur's servants,
who had finally come to his senses.

"You heard what I said," Race sh9uted.

"I suppose it would have come to this one way or another.  See me when
you get back to town," Jason lifted Em up onto the sweating horse.

"My friends will call on you."

"If you have any.  Oh, and Bellecoeur," Jason said as he mounted behind
Em, "if word of this ever gets about, it will not be settled as an
affair of honor.  I will come to your house, drag you out of it and
horsewhip you in the public square.  So see that you keep your mouth
shut about this."

Jason trotted back up the road with Em.  Race slammed himself into the
carriage.  Things had not gone at all as he had planned.  He untied the
handkerchief from the bloody scratches Em had left on his wrist so that
he could blot at his broken lip.  He took out his flask and drained it,
but it was almost empty and the brandy burned his lip more than it
eased the pain in his jaw.  For his temper it did nothing at all.  He
heard some guffawing from his servants as they at last put the horses
right and started back toward London.  He resolved to rid himself of
the one who laughed at him if he could discover which one it was.  At
least he had got what he wanted, a meeting with Jason.  With Jason out
of the way, Elizabeth would be his.  He had not bothered to think far
enough ahead in his machinations to calculate how Elizabeth would feel
about the man who shot Jason, even if it were not a serious wound. 
Race thought only of showing Jason up, of demonstrating that he had
more courage.  Most likely the fellow would just pack up his sister and
leave town.

"Oh, Jason, I do not deserve that you should have come after me," Em
said pitifully.  "I have been so stupid.  He never meant to marry me.
He just told me so."  "I know it.  He meant me to find you."  "But why
did he offer for me then?"

"To get you away quietly and pretend to disgrace you.  He never meant
you any real harm.  But he was sure that Elizabeth would shun me, with
my sister involved in such a scandal."

"Would she?"

"No, of course not."

"Then his plan would not have worked."

"No, you were not frightened, were you?"

"No, of course not."  She choked the words out with a sob.

"Did you not think it odd that he would elope with you rather than have
an ordinary wedding?"

"But, Jason, eloping is so much more of an adventure than just getting
married.  Besides, I thought if I kept him away for a few days you
might have a chance to make up with Elizabeth."

"I could do with a little less interference in my love life."

"I only wanted to help."

"Don't cry, but you should not have put yourself in dan-gcr just for
me."

"I didn't know what he could be like.  I have talked to him safely
enough before."

"How could you know?  You have only known good men like Clive."

"Is Clive very angry with me?"

"Right now he is more frightened for you than angry, but there is no
saying what kind of mood he will be in by the time he gets back from
Scotland."

"Scotland!  Why go to Scotland?"

"That's what I asked.  Can you manage riding in front of me for another
few miles?  I will get us a chaise at the last posting house I
passed."

"I'm fine now."

"Why did you trust him, Era?  You must know he tried to get you in
trouble over those cigars."

"Well, I like him well enough; and I thought if one of us has to marry
for money it had better be me."

"Father would never sell you to such a man as that," Jason said with a
certain lack of conviction.

"No, of course not.  But I did think marrying him, if I could manage
it, would distract Race so that he would let you and Elizabeth
alone."

"Distract him?  You did that, all right."

"And even if he ran shy of marriage, all I had to do was get him to
fall in love with me, which he looked to be doing.  Then I could have
kept him dangling until you were safely married and dumped him if I
chose."

Jason whistled.

"I think he would have been well served, don't you?"  "And more than a
little surprised, child."  "Jason, will Father be very angry with
me?"

"Not angry so much as upset.  You have worried him a great deal these
past months.  And he is getting on in years.

You must promise you won't do anything like this again."  "I have been
terrible.  You must hate me."

Jason held his sister a little tighter.  "Don't be stupid.

Didn't you put up with me when I was so vile?"

"But that was not your fault."

"Neither was this your fault.  We threw you into London too fast, let
alone the whole town is half-mad.  You will do better next season.
You'll see."

Jason walked the horse into the inn yard just as Belle-coeur's carriage
passed them on the road.  Jason announced that they had a breakdown and
needed to rent a chaise for London.

"Why did you tell him that?"

"It was the most likely thing I could think of.  I feel I have not your
knack for subterfuge."

"They are looking at us rather oddly."

"They would never believe that we are brother and sister.  All runaway
lovers use that lie," Jason said, straggling out of his coat and
throwing it around her shoulders.  "Is that what they think we are?"
"Unless I miss my guess."

Em giggled so delightfully that Jason realized she was back to normal.
Her good humor, rather than the frightened face she had been wearing,
did more to allay the ostlers' suspicions than any tale Jason could
have told them.

"God, I am going to miss you, Era," he said as they lumbered home in
the hired chaise with Bedlam tied on behind.

"But we shall always be close, Jason," she said, "even after we both
marry."

"Yes, of course."

Chapter Fifteen

It was not even three o'clock when the hired chaise brought Jason and
Em back to the house in Green Street.  Jason made sure he did raise the
house and let all the servants know they had returned.  Then he took Em
to see his mother.  As he suspected Lady Weir was not asleep, but had
risen at all the commotion.  It took some time and a great many
questions for her to assure herself that Em was not harmed.

Jason explained the situation to' his father, omitting the part about
the duel, then sat down to write a comforting note to Marissa, so that
the Falcrests would know Em was all right.  He sent this around
immediately by a servant, thinking that, even if they had gone to bed,
they would have it first thing in the morning.

Jason had thrown himself down on his bed for a few hours' sleep.  When
he awoke at six he felt unusually calm as he might before a battle.  He
remembered all that had happened.  Another morning he might have taken
a walk before breakfast and run across Elizabeth and Amy.  Today that
would be unwise.

He washed and shaved and dressed to receive visitors, then went to his
father's study and had coffee brought to him there.  There were one or
two items of business he had to clear up just in case.  Aside from his
captaincy in the artillery, his only asset was a small farm left him by
his grandfather.  It was not adjacent to High Stand and the income from
it amounted to no more than a hundred a year, and that in a good year,
but the house had been sound the last time he had checked on it.  He
consigned it to Elizabeth.  It was not much, almost nothing.  He had
nothing else.  As for leaving her a letter, he did try, time and again,
to put something to paper that might comfort her, if things should go
amiss.  But he couldn't, so he would have to trust that he knew Race
better than Race knew himselfi

Jason heard the front door from time to time but refused to get up.  He
sat reading Suetonius over again, an odd choice, but it passed the
time.  Soldiers did the most trivial things before a battle when they
had too much time on their hands.  They played cards or dice.  It was
some assurance that they would live to see the other end of the day.
Jason did not know one of them who did anything useful, like pray.

Eventually he tired of the book and tossed it aside.  Idly he wondered
who Bellecoeur would send to call on him.  There were one or two French
6migr6s who hung about him and, he thought, a cousin, Terrance Wently
by name.  He took a gulp of coffee, but it was black and cold.  So
different from the steaming, aromatic brew that Elizabeth had comforted
him with.  Never mind.  It fitted the day.

The door opened and Clive burst in.  "Jason, why the devil didn't you
send me word Em was safe?"

"I sent a note to Marissa.  I hardly thought you would be back by now,"
Jason said in some amusement.

"Well, I did go two stages, but no one had seen anything of them, so I
thought perhaps you were right.  But now Em is talking about Bellecoeur
calling you out."

"Good Lord, I did not think she realized what he said."  "I don't
believe she does.  She asked me what he meant by 'meeting you.""

Besieged

"You didn't let on, did you?"

"No, of course not.  It's true, then?"

"It was inevitable."

"If anyone should be defending Em's honor, it should be me."

"Actually no, but it doesn't matter.  I am the one Bel lecoeur wants to
shoot at."

"But why?"

"Never mind.  Will you act for me?"

"Yes, of course, but what about your mother?"  "You can break the news
to her if it comes to that."  "I say, JasOn--"

There was a knock and the butler ducked his head in to say, "A Mr.
Wently to see you, sir."

"Send him in."

Jason introduced Clive and Wently as though they were going to sit down
to a hand of cards.

"Under other circumstances it would be my duty to seek an apology,"
Wently said uncomfortably.

"We both know those were not your instructions," Jason said, seating
himself on the edge of the desk as his guest preferred to stand.

"I was merely told to set a time and place."

"Six, tomorrow morning."

"Race can provide the pistols if that is agreeable."  "Very good of
him," Jason said cheerfully.

"I have found a surgeon to stand in readiness."

"I hardly think that will be necessary.  As for the place, you two know
London better than me.  You may devise a location where we are not
likely to be disturbed."

Wently looked relieved and seemed inclined to take Clive off somewhere
to accomplish this but Jason detained them.

"There is just one other thing," Jason said as he rose and walked to
the window.  "I would like you to ask Bel-lecoeur to make it a clean
kill."  He folded his arms and seemed preoccupied by something in the
street.

"What?"  asked Wently and Clive in unison.  Clive's eyes grew round and
Wently broke a sweat.

"I d-don't think he means to make it a killing matter," Wently said.

"When he reflects upon it I'm sure he will see that it can be nothing
else.  You understand my meaning.  It would be hard on my mother and
sister if I were to ... linger."  Jason turned his head and looked at
him on that word.

"I will tell him then," Wently agreed reluctantly, like some medieval
herald burdened with an uncomfortable ultimatum.

Jason smiled coldly as the two took themselves off on their
disagreeable task.  Jason had always considered himself a good judge of
men.  He wondered if he was right in thinking Race capable of infamy
only when drunk or in a towering rage.  He was betting his life on Race
coming to his senses.  Surely the man must have realized by now that
Elizabeth would never be his.  Was it just that if Race could not have
her, he would fix it so that Jason could not marry her, either?  No one
was that vengeful.  He thought for some odd reason again of the
cuirassier he had butchered, and wondered if he was going to get his
own back for that act.

A day from now it would all be over, one way or the other.  That is how
Jason made it past a battle, knowing that the passage of time, if
nothing else, would bring the hell to an end.  Guns could only fire so
long.  Sooner or later you ran out of powder or horses or men.

He pushed the war away from him.  He had not thought of it for some
time, nor of his former life at High Stand.  It had once seemed a
refuge to him, the only safe place he knew in the world.  For him now,
that was Elizabeth's arms.  He might never feel those arms again.  Even
as he tried to conjure up her face it appeared before him in the
street.  He wiped his hand over his eye.  She was really there, just
getting into a carriage with her mother.  He had not even known she was
visiting in the house.  She was far from her smiling self, nor was she
that cool and distant person he had last encountered.  She looked
worded, fearful almost.  She glanced suddenly at the window where he
stood and he stepped back.  She did not look away.  Her eyes clung to
that window for as one as it was in sight.

Had she been alone, Elizabeth would have ordered the card age stopped.
She would have gone back to Jason.  She owed him an explanation for her
odd behavior.  Now that she assumed Race had done his worst, abducted
Em, she could give up the pretense and warn Jason openly, or they could
run off themselves and be married by special license.  There must be a
way out of this mess.  But, carefully guarded as she was by her mother,
she had not even got a chance to speak to him.  They came to offer
apologies for the previous night's disaster and to assure Lady Weir
they meant to keep it quiet.  One thing she would not do now was leave
town.  She was tired to being afraid of Race.  She would find a way
out.  She had to.  She must go home and send Jason a note.

However the morning outing went, Jason had an odd feeling he had seen
Elizabeth for the last time.  He felt as though he had lived his life
in miniature, encapsulated within a few short weeks, like one of Em's
heroically truncated piano pieces.  He had found his true love and his
life's work and he might have lost them both.  He had known briefly,
through Amy, what it would have been like to have a child of his own.
And he was glad for that experience, as well.  Was it enough?  Of
course not.  He could spend fifty years with Elizabeth by his side and
it would not be enough.

Jason savoured an hour with his mother and Em, saying goodbye in his
own way just in case.  He had arranged to meet Clive in Portman Square
at five the next morning.  He need not go home again, indeed he did not
plan on it, for he had no confidence in his father being oblivious to
what was going on.

"He what?"  Race interrupted his meticulous toilet to demand of his
cousin.

"He requested in the calmest fashion that you make it a clean kill.  He
said it would be best for everyone."

"He doesn't mean to fight me?  Just stand up and be executed?"

"It is unlikely he can see well enough to hit you.  I do not think he
means to try."

"He's committing suicide and he is using me to do it.  I will just pink
him and that's that," said Race, throwing the wrinkled neck cloth aside
and picking up a fresh one.  "But why did you challenge him, then?"

"I thought he might just take his precious sister away from here and I
would be rid of him."

"Not fight, you mean?  But he is a soldier.  He would never run."

"I certainly didn't think he would give up Elizabeth, but he's done it
in such a way that I can't have her, either--well, I won't play into
his hands.  I'll just wound him."

"But he's a soldier.  He will know where you are aiming.  What if he
steps into the bullet?"

"God's death!  He's trapped me.  If I kill him I shall have to leave
the country.  If I do much more than nick him

Elizabeth will never speak to me again."  "You could de lope "Admit I
was wrong?"

"It's the honorable thing to do."

"I have never de loped in my life."

"There is no shame in it.  It's either that or kill him."

"He is sacrificing himself for Elizabeth.  If she does love him ...
this will break her heart."

"I thought Elizabeth was in love with you."

"Yes, she must be.  How could she not love me when I love her so
desperately?"  Race asked bitterly.

"But what if she really does love Weir?"  his cousin prompted.

Race glowered at him.

Besieged

There was no reply to Elizabeth's note.  She now waited for C!I've less
patiently than she had ever waited for anything in her life.  It was
nearly dinnertime before she heard his voice in the hall.  She stepped
to the drawing room door and called to him.

"What is it?"  he asked, coming into the room.

"I believe Jason to be engaged to fight a duel.  Do you know when and
where?"

"How did you--?"

"It was something Em let fall this morning."

Clive was looking at her with pain in his eyes.

"I have a right to know.  We have been engaged for days now."  '

"It's true.  Tomorrow.  It won't help you to know where."  '

"I must see Jason.  I must explain to him why I was so cold last time
we met."

"Perhaps Jason thinks it better not to see you."

"Then I must talk to Race.  There must be something I can do to stop
it."

"There is nothing you can do except wait.  I will take care of Jason
the best I' can."

"Wait!  I will go mad with waiting."  Elizabeth covered her eyes and
tried to compose herself.  "To have made.  it through the war and then
have his life snatched from him in this way--all because of me."

Jason stayed at the hospital late, then sought a solitary dinner in St.
James.  As always, he preferred to spend the night before a battle
alone.  He wandered back toward Hyde Park where he and Elizabeth had
taken so many rides.  He was tired, but he knew that even if he did go
home he would not be able to sleep.  The craving for a cigar was almost
overwhelming.  He was glad there were none within easy reach so that he
did not run the risk of breaking his promise to Em.

He sat under a tree to watch the moon in its deliberate course across
the sky and wondered how he had come to such a pass.  He had pursued Em
and Bellecoeur in a cold, purposeful rage, knowing he was meant to find
them.  He had no intention of letting the man draw him into another
fight.  But when he had heard Em cry out for help it made his blood
boil.  That she would appeal to a stranger, who might be a footpad or
worse, to help her get away from Bellecoeur had wrung his heart.  It
amazed him that he had not killed the man then and there.  Just like in
battle he had carelessly thrown his life into the balance like a
worthless thing, a thing already spent.

And yet he did not think Bellecoeur wanted to kill him any more than he
wanted to ruin Era.  What did Bellecoeur think?  That he would take Em
and leave town?  Bellecoeur was a fool, but Jason did not think he was
a murderer.  Jason might be throwing his life away on a half-formed
notion that there was some good in Bellecoeur, some mercy.  One did not
look for such a thing in time of war, so it was that much more
surprising to encounter it.

No, he did not want to die even if it turned out he could not marry
Elizabeth.  He remembered he had a future, but he was too paralyzed
with fatigue to think of it now.  He only wanted to sleep and would at
that moment have been willing to let his fate be determined by a toss
of the dice.

Elizabeth, feigning a headache, escaped her mother's company for the
evening.  Scarcely had the carriage left Portman Square than Elizabeth
slipped out of the house and made her way to the Weir house on Green
Street.  She was told by an astonished butler that Jason was not home
but Lord Weir was in.  Elizabeth asked to see him.

"Where is Jason?"  Elizabeth asked desperately when she was conducted
into the study.

"I don't know.  Are you alone, child?"

Besieged

"I must talk to him.  I have made a terrible mistake."

"Surely--surelY he will come home tonight.  Do you wish to wait for
him?"

"But will he, will he risk it?"  she asked.

"I don't know.  He may fear meeting you as much as talking to me."

"You know then, about the fight."

"Yes, I pieced it together from Em's garbled story."

"It's all my fault.  I have been so cool to Jason lately he must think
I have stopped loving him.  I thought if I could

Race, he would leave Jason alone until we could--" tric'kls it true?
You really love Jason?  It's not just pity.

"We had hoped to marry someday.  I know you cannot like it, but..."

"You really do love him?"

"Yes, of course I do," Elizabeth said passionately.

"I thought it was all one-sided."  Lord Weir covered his face and
slumped at his desk in an uncharacteristic moment of weakness.

"Are yOU ill, sir?"  me"

"I didn't want him to fall into the same trap as

"Marriage?"

"No.  I fell in love.  with his mother before I even met her.  I moved
heaven and earth to win her.  To my sorrow I

succeeded, only to discover she did not love me.  She did not even like
me.  Have you any idea what thirty years of that kind of love is like?
Of course not.  It's a hunger that can never be satisfied, a torture to
have her and not have her at all."

"Why would you think it would be like that for us?"

"I didn't know.  I didn't know you truly loved him."

"Well, now you know and all will be well if I can just see him."

"Not if he dies tomorrow.  The things I said to him--I

can't believe it.  It's only that I thought an arranged marriage would
hurt him less."

"It would have been hell for him, as it would for me.  We were prepared
to wait."

"What is to be done?  Have you any idea when they fight or where?"

"Tomorrow morning.  Either Clive didn't know where or he would not tell
me for fear I would turn up there."  "Would you?"

"Well, of course," Elizabeth said impatiently.  "What do I care about
honor or these games men play?  Men are so absolutely stupid about
these things.  I would do anything to save Jason, anything!"

"You do not seem like yourself tonight, child.  Sit down and rest.  If
Jason comes back, we will do what we can to talk him out of this
thing."

"But he is just like the rest of you," Elizabeth said, suddenly
realizing the hopelessness of her errand.  "He will laugh at me and
tell me not to worry.  Well, I am tired of being sheltered and
protected.  I am tired of sitting at home and worrying.  If I had a gun
I would shoot Race myself."  Elizabeth's wild pacing ceased suddenly as
she had a thought.  "I will stop this thing one way or another.  Good
night, sir."

"Elizabeth, wait, I will see you home."

"No, you must stay and talk to Jason if he returns."  "I will call the
carriage for you, then.  I never had anything against you, child.  I
just did not realize until now that you are serious about Jason."

"We have been secretly engaged for days.  In my mind I am his wife.
Whatever happens tomorrow I will never belong to anyone else."

"I have made a terrible mess of things.  If he comes off safely from
this I will do anything to help you, send him to school if that's what
he wants, and I will welcome you as my daughter."

"If---but we can't leave it to chance," Elizabeth vowed.  "If he comes
home then you can stop him.  Tie him up if you have to."

Besieged

"If I know Jason he will not come home tonight.  He's a soldier.  What
cares he if he sleeps in his clothes or does not sleep at all.  He is
used to that kind of life."

"Not like Race," Elizabeth said, thinking out loud.  "He will be tucked
up safely in bed and he will rise early and dress with the greatest
care tomorrow so as to look his best.  That is the difference between
them."

When Elizabeth was delivered safe to her door she went straight
upstairs to Clive's room.  She did not think he would be there.  In the
top bureau drawer was a set of pistols.  She took the contents of the
box and spread them out on the bed.  She had seen Clive and William
load their pistols a hundred times.  It could not be so very hard.  She
managed it in less time than she had expected and once again slipped
out the front door.  She knew Race's house was not far and she dared
not get a coach to take her there.  She was detained by some late
revelers, it being now close to three in the morning.  She raised the
gun from the folds of her cloak and that was enough to make them back
off with placating noises.

Elizabeth had not thought far enough ahead to decide on her mode of
entry.  She had a feeling a cloaked woman might be admitted to Race's
house by his servants, but she dreaded the thought of playing such a
part.  She paced down the narrow passage to the back.  All the houses
on Grosvenor Street were not built shoulder to shoulder like some of
the new squares, but had narrow walks to the back scrap of garden.  A
downstairs side window looked temptingly accessible if only she had a
box to stand upon.  She swung the gate to the narrow walkway over and
wedged it against the wall.  Standing on top of it put her nearly waist
high with the sill.  She struggled in, ignoring the sound of ripping
muslin.  She made her way stealthily up the stairs as she tried to turn
the plan of the house around in her mind.  She had called here
reluctantly with her mother, but she had only seen the downstairs.  She
guessed Race's room would front on the square.  Her first try led her
into the room of Lady Amelia, who lay asleep propped on a huge mound of
lace-encrusted pillows.  The delay turned out to her advantage for she
heard voices suddenly across the hall.  She opened the door a crack and
saw Race's valet leaving with a pair of evening shoes and some dirty
linen.  After a few minutes she crossed the landing and entered the
darkened

"What is it now, man?"  Race said from the bed.  "Well?"  RaCe
demanded, sitting up.  "Who are you?  How did you get in here?"

"Stay where you are."

"Elizabeth?"  Race slid out of bed and lit a candle.  "If you came to
beg for Weir's life, you--" Race nearly dropped the taper when he saw
the gun in her trembling hands.  She held it tightly with both hands,
pointed at the floor in front of her until Race said, "Give me that
thing," and advanced on her.  Then she.  raised it to chest height.

"You won't shoot me," he said on a half laugh, but stopped all the
same.

"Of course I will.  Do you think I care what happens to you or me
now?"

"You must be mad."

"How could you challenge him?  You know he can't see well enough to hit
ou"

"He could have refused."

"Is that what you wanted?"

"It's what I expected.  He would have looked shabby."

"Do you imagine that would have mattered to me?  You men and your
stupid games."

"I don't mean to kill him anyway."

"Not good enough.  I won't have him hurt at all."  Elizabeth used one
hand to Cock the pistol without taking her eyes from Race.

Besiesed

Race had not been worried up until then, but now protested, "Elizabeth,
what do you mean to do?"

"Shoot you if you attempt to leave here."

"See here now.  I have got to go.  What will people think?"

"I don't care what people think of you--don't!"  she warned, as he took
a step toward her.  "I don't see all that well myself.  If I kill you
it will be an accident, but you will be dead all the same."

"What am I supposed to do?"

"Nothing.  We are merely going to wait.  You sit in that chair.  I will
sit in this one.  And we will wait here until eight o'clock in the
morning.  They should have given up on you by then."

"You'll never stay awake that long," Race said with a smile.

Elizabeth had not considered that this would be a problem, but the
stress of the past hours had taken its toll on her.  She bit her lips
and thought of Jason with his brains scattered on the grass to shock
herself awake.  Race was unusually quiet.  He meant for her to fall
asleep.  If she did, he still had to cross twenty feet and grab the
gun.  She thought about how she would hold it when he sprang at her. He
glanced at her, She was sure he would try this and she now considered
quite coldly where it would be best to shoot him so as not to kill him.
Not in the head or trunk, of course.  Having dealt with Clive's leg
wound, she shuddered to think of being responsible for such a thing. 
The shoulder, she thought, but he could lose an arm if she missed and
shattered the bone, or die if she hit a large artery.  And it would be
at close range.  With her eyes it would be hard to make sure she did
not hit him in the head.

Jason awoke with a start.  He could not think for a moment where he
was.  The loud chirping of the crickets suggested High Stand, but he
was sleeping on the ground as he might during a campaign.  When his
vision cleared he remembered the park and rose stiffly.  The dampness
had crept into his clothes, but this was only a minor discomfort.  They
would dry as he walked.  He made his way to Portman Square.  He looked
up at Elizabeth's window which was dark and cold.  He felt more distant
from her than ever.  He could not know she wasn't even there.  He did
not go up the front steps but walked around to the stable where Clive
was already waiting for the sleepy grooms to harness his team.

"I don't suppose you could make a bit more noise while you're about
it," Clive snapped at the under groom "We don't want to rouse the whole
house, you know."  "Sorry, sir."

"Easy, C!I've," Jason cautioned.

"I have never been so torn in my life," Clive complained.  "Part of me
wants to stop you from this insanity at all costs.  How can I face
Elizabeth if something happens to you?"

"And the other part of you?"  Jason prompted.  "Realizes that this is
the only honorable course."  "Not unlike the morning before a battle,
is it?  We all know how insane it is to be firing shells at total
strangers and waiting for them to return fire."

"Yet we know it has to be done."

"What is it that spurs us to it, do you think?"  Jason pondered.  "Not
some higher purpose, at least not in my case.  '

"Honor?"

"I think not.  Perhaps fear of being thought a coward."  "I would never
condemn you--" "In my case, it's momentum."  "What?"  Clive asked.

"Once one of my guns is set rolling you do not easily stop it.  I am
like that.  I may have been moving in this direction for some time.  My
meeting with Bellecoeur was inevitable."

Besieged

"You don't have to defeat Bellecoeur to win Elizabeth or defend Em's
honor."

"This is not about Elizabeth or Em.  It is only about me."

"I see."  Clive nodded.  "It would be like running from battle."

"Yes, unthinkable," Jason agreed.

Elizabeth jumped and almost pulled the trigger.  Race laughed and sat
back in his chair again.  It was not the first time he had caught her
dozing.  The candle was wavering, its wick long and smoking.  She
looked at it, gauging how much life was left in it--4twenty minutes, no
more--and almost considered ordering him to light another, but the sky
was beginning to lighten in the east.  There would be enough daylight
soon to see by.  Suddenly there was a knocking at the street door and
people were admitted.  Elizabeth stood nervously.  Footsteps were
tramping up the stairs.  There was a knock at the door.  "Tell them to
go away!"  she commanded, raising the gun.

"Come in," Race said.

"No, don't!"  Elizabeth yelled.

There was a whispered conference on the landing.

"I said come in."

"No, go away.  He is not coming," she called, but to Race she said,
"Not one more word."

When the door opened, Elizabeth did no more than dart her eyes toward
it.  That's when Race lunged.  He was almost to her when she' pulled
the trigger.  There was a click and an explosion.  Race recoiled and
crashed backward into the table.  The room was thrown into darkness.

"By God, you've shot me!"  he said after a moment.  "I did warn you,"
Elizabeth said as several figures burst into the room.  The valet had a
branch of candles by which Elizabeth could see blood on Race's
nightshirt, quite a lot of it, but it was high up, above the
collarbone.  Nothing could have been better.

"What has happened?"  Wently asked, stupefied.

"We need a doctor," Elizabeth informed him.  She was on her knees
trying to stanch the bleeding with an inadequate handkerchief.  "Go
wake Lady Amelia's doc tot.  '

There's a surgeon in the carriage."

"We!!"  don't stand there like a block" she said, "go fetch him."

A few minutes later Elizabeth stood and wiped her bloody hand on her
dress as the surgeon opened his bag and set efficiently to work to bind
the wound.

"Race, what the devil caused this?"  his cousin demanded

"The lady and I had a slight disagreement," Race mumbled.

"There's nothing slight about it.  She may have done for

OU"

Y .

"The ball has missed the shoulder blade and gone straight through.  You
couldn't ask for a cleaner wound," the surgeon said cheerfully.

"Thank you," Elizabeth said quietly.

Wendy looked at her in absolute horror.

"I shall call the constables.  You can't just come into a man's room
and shoot him."

"Let her go," Race commanded.

"I'm sorry that I had to hurt you, Race."

"So am I. Perhaps it will be convenient for you to marry a doctor."

"Yes, I think so."

Elizabeth rose to her feet on trembling legs.  As an afterthought she
bent and took up Clive's pistol.  The servants moved aside as though
they imagined it was st/ll loaded.  How silly, she thought and walked,
weak-kneed down the stairs and back to the house in Portman Square, She
thought this must be how Jason had felt that morning he met them after
Wright had died, totally drained and Spent but satisfied.  She went
straight to the drawing room to wait.

Besieged

"For someone eager to blow your brains out this fellow is very late,"
Clive complained at half past the appointed hour

"Let's give him another half hour.  He may have had a late night."
Jason was as loose as C!I've was taut.  "There is something I would
like you to do for me, if things go amiss."

"What?"

"Just a stone and some engraving.  The fellow lies in St.  Giles
Cemetery."

"Good friend of yours?"  Clive asked, pocketing the paper.

"Yes, yes he was."

"Anything else?"

"There's a small farm near Hereford.  It's not much."  Jason handed
Clive a letter addressed to Lord Weir.  "Tell Elizabeth for me..."

"Tell her yourself later," Clive said with a crooked smile as he
pocketed the letter.  "Here comes Race now."  They both watched the
approach of a curricle and pair.

"Wait--that's Tony's team," Jason said accusingly.  "How did he find
out about this?"

"I suppose I may have let it slip.  You know how I am when I am
drinking."-' Clive wandered away as Tony threw the reins to his
groom.

"Jason!"  Tony shouted as he strode toward him.  "You must not go
through with this.  With one eye you haven't a prayer."

"You make a fellow feel so much better, Tony."

"Don't joke.  You could be killed.  Do you think I Want that?"

"After the other night..."

"I didn't mean it.  I was thinking only of Charlie, still feeling it
too much.  I will never get over his loss.  That gave me no right to
cut at you.  It isn't your fault he's dead.  When I thought back over
what we had been through in those hospitals, how you went with me When
I could barely screw up my courage to walk through the door, I knew I

was wrong about you.  I was unhinged with fatigue and emptiness."

"I knew that.  It happens to all of us."

"I'll talk to Bellecoeur.  Surely he will listen to reason."

"He's not what you'd call a reasonable fellow.  There only remains to
be seen if he is beyond all hope."

"You will let me talk to him then, ask him to apologize?"

"You may do as you please, of course, but my guess is he has still too
much pride for that."

"After all you have survived, it is absurd to throw your life away like
this.  Dueling is so stupid."

"I couldn't agree with you more, Tony.  But we will simply have to wait
for Bellecoeur."

Jason leaned against a large sycamore and Clive wandered over to join
him in watching Tony pace the ground.  "I do wish he would stop
fidgeting," Clive complained.  "The boy makes me nervous."

"Boy?  He's only a few years younger than us, Clive."

"But he's acting like a young recruit.  Were we ever that raw?"  '

"I imagine so, in the dim past.  We have grown old before our time,
Clive."

"I used to think so, but now I think I shall take Marissa's advice."

"And what is the, t?"

"Lengthen my stirrups and get on with my life."  "I'm happy for you,
Clive."

Jason was still in his riding clothes from the day before, hatless,
with the mist glistening in his blond hair.  Suddenly an immense
weariness overtook him and he slid down against the tree, resting his
elbows on his bent knees and leaning his head back with a groan.  "Wake
me when you see the carriage."

He did fall asleep then, almost instantly and completely.  Clive
shrugged and lit a cigar.  He could not remember seeing Jason, or
anyone for that matter, so tired out.  This

Besieged brought it all back, the war, the waiting before the fight,
standing about with your horse ready saddled, trying to joke yet
listening intently for the booming of the guns and the order to mount.
It was only that first time that he had sailed into the fight in high
spirits.  After that it had been a job, and a nasty one.  Like everyone
else he pretended it was a grand adventure.  Reality had beaten that
out of him young.

After twenty minutes Jason awoke with a sigh and looked about him.  His
eye was playing tricks on him, he supposed from lack of sleep.  Things
shot forward alarmingly or receded into the background depending on how
he focused.  What was the good of all his mathematics now?  He could
hardly trust himself to handle a gun today.  "Is Bellecoeur here?"
Jason asked.

"No, that was Tony scuffling about.  I wish I could send him off on
picket duty."

Jason stood up and stretched.

"Do you mean to kill him?"  Clive asked suddenly without looking at
Jason.

"No, not even if I could."

"You don't mean to shoot at him?"

"With one eye I can't see well enough to merely wound him so I will
fire wide."

"If I were you I would be nervous as a cat.  Well, look at me.  I am.
You calmly tell me you don't mean to defend yourself and you say it as
though you imagine Bellecoeur won't try to kill you."

"Oh, come now.  He's not such a bad fellow, if only he would stay away
from Em and Elizabeth."

"Not such are you really don't hate him?"

"No more than the French.  They were victims, too, you know, well, most
of them.  The hell of it is I could have liked the man well enough
under other circumstances."

Clive crushed his cigar impatiently.  "He tried to run off with your
sister and mine, by what I hear.  Who knows what he would have done to
them."

"Yes, he is a bothersome fellow to have about."

"Bothersome.  He won't have any qualms about killing you.  I think you
should reconsider."

"No, it's all been set into motion now.  Whatever happens I must
believe it is for the best."

"You suddenly sound like you don't even care.  What about marrying
Elizabeth, becoming a doctor?"

"That was a dream, and perhaps it will still happen, but

I dare not think that far ahead.  It's too dangerous."  "And this is
not?"

"When you have something to lose it makes you afraid.  Nothing is more
fatal."

"We are not talking about a battle.  We are talking about a crack shot
who is going to come and put a hole through you unless you shoot him
first."

"PerhaPs, but that's not how I feel."

"I don't understand you."

"I don't understand myself except that I feel delightfully free this
morning.  Ther are no more decisions to make.  There is nothing I
particularly have to do except let the day unfold around me.  Then, one
way or the other, I will get to rest finally."

"My God!  You expect to die?  Jason, answer me."  Clive grabbed his
shoulder and shook him.  "Think of Elizabeth, think of her love for
you, all your plans."

"Elizabeth.  She is almost too good, too perfect to marry a mortal
man."

"Well, it's a sure bet she can't marry a dead one!  Come to your
senses.  I have seen this before.  A fellow simply decides one day it
is his last, and, by God, he does die that day."

"I have seen it, too."

"Then you should know better.  You deserve a life together, you and
Elizabeth."

"After all the bodies I have mangled I don't deserve anything.  I must
have killed hundreds ... thousands with my guns."

Besieged

"It is finally setting in for you.  I had hoped you, at least,

would be spared that."

"What?"

"That paralyzing numbness inside.  Do you imagine any of us came away
guiltless?  It doesn't hit you first thing.  I mean at first you are
only glad to be alive, then you must try to get used to the dullness of
ordinary life.  That is hard.  Not to be impatient with people.  Then
the guilt, all the faces you have seen that looked at you in surprise
just before your sword came down."

"C!I've, I had no idea what it was like for you."  Jason seemed to
rouse himself and looked into Clive's eyes as he would look searchingly
into the eyes of a brother.  "How did, you bear it?"

Elizabeth pulled me through.  she knows exactly what is happening to
you.  She helped me to survive until the pain dulled enough for me to
live with it.  It went away slowly, like the pain in my leg, with the
passage of time.  You are such a rational fellow I thought perhaps you
would escape it."

"I made a bet with Race.  He is not aware of it.  I bet him that he is
not a murderer like me."

"But the stakes are your life.  Give it a year before you throw it away
like this.  You can't pay for what you have done by merely dying.  It's
not that easy.  You have a life's work ahead of you and so have I. And
you have Elizabeth."

"But, Clive.  You don't understand.  I believe Elizabeth has thought
better of it.  If I'm dead she will never have to tell me that, and I
will never have to hear it, that she doesn't love me after all."

"What are you talking about?  What could have happened since last
night?  She was desperate for me to stop this.  If I had told her where
it was to be, she would have come here.  She loves you still.  I am
certain of it."

Jason was puzzling over this revelation when Tony suddenly ceased his
pacing and announced, "I'm starving.  He's not coming."

"What time is it?"  Jason asked in confusion.

"Getting on toward seven," Clive replied.  "Shall we go and feed Tony?
It's my guess he has had nothing since yesterday morning."

"This is not what I expected.  Bellecoeur must have been detained."

"What did you expect?"  asked Clive.

"That he would either de lope or kill me."

"And you stood here calm as you please not knowing which it would be?"
Tony scoffed.

Jason shrugged.

"Are you sure you won't join me?"  Clive lit a cigar with less than
steady hands.

"No, thank you," said Jason, smiling.  "You know, I think my father is
right.  Those things are very bad for you."  '

C!I've rolled his eyes at Tony.  "So is being shot through the lungs,
you maniac."  Jason laughed, but Tony merely sighed.

"Oh, no," Tony groaned.  "Here they come."  "Damn," Clive muttered.

Jason, who was just beginning to revive, felt the strange numbness
begin to steal back through his veins like a draft of poison, but when
the curricle rolled up it contained only one man.  Wently got down and
walked slowly toward them.

"Bellecoeur sends his regrets, but he cannot meet you due to an
accident."

"Accident?"  Jason asked, blinking.

"Yes, also he sends his apologies for the recent event that occasioned
this meeting."

It took some few seconds for this to sink in and for Jason to form a
reply.  Three pairs of eyes were anxiously turned toward him.  He
smiled when he realized he was the reason for so much suspense.

"Please tell Bellecoeur that I accept his apology.  That event and this
meeting will never be spoken of again."  He

Besieged looked significantly at Tony and Clive, who both nodded.  "And
please tell him that I would like to consider all the hard words that
have passed between us unsaid."

"Yes, thank you," Wently said with relief.  "Yes, I will tell him."

Wently had turned to go when Clive spoke up.  "If you have not
breakfasted yet, would you join us at the Golden Cock?"

She must have fallen asleep, Elizabeth thought, when she came awake
with a start.  She leapt up from the chair in terror at the sun
streaming in through the window and spun to look at the clock.  It was
past eight.  Perhaps Jason had gone home, but where was Clive?  How
could they be so unfeeling as not 'to let her know all was well.  Then
she remembered Jason was not aware she knew about the duel.  She heard
James denying her to someone and thrust the door open to discover Lord
Weir in the hall.

"Please come in."

"I didn't know you were up, miss," James said apologetically.

"How could you?  Please bring us some coffee in here."

"I could not wait any longer," said Lord Weir.  "You have had no
word?"

"Not yet, but all will be well, I think.  There is no possible way Race
could have fought Jason."  She thought about the amount of blood he had
lost and shook her head.  "No, he could not possibly have met him.  Or
his nephew and surgeon would have prevented him going."

"Surgeon?"  From his strained look it was obvious Lord Weir had not
slept at all.

"Yes, I had not thought about it, but it was fortunate he happened to
be there at Race's house."

"You went to see the man---to beg him for Jason's life."

"Certainly not!"  Elizabeth said, a certain fire in her blue eyes.

She east off her cloak impatiently to reveal a rent and dirty walking
dress with a smear of blood on the fight side.  Her golden locks were
disordered, her cheeks kissed by an angry flush.  Lord Weir had seen
Miss Palcrest in jewels and rose pink silk, but he thought she had
never looked more magnificent than at that moment.  He rose to go to
her, compelled by her distress and the suspicion that she might be
hurt.  "Then how can you know Bellecoeur has not gone to fight him?"

"Because I shot him."

Lord Weir stared at her and sank backward, as it happened, into a
chair.  "You shot Bellecoeur?"

"I have shocked you.  For that I am sorry, but do not ask me to regret
putting a bullet through that man.  It was high time someone did.  He
straight away became exceedingly reasonable."

"I--I would imagine so," Lord Weir mumbled, covering his eyes.

"Are you quite well, sir?  Ah, here is the coffee, or would you prefer
tea?"

Lord Weir laughed, attempted to contain himself, but lost all control
and fairly guffawed to the point where Elizabeth sent James for a
vinaigrette.  "I can appreciate the severe strain you have been under,
enough to overset anyone's nerves."  '

"No, it's only that, here I was, thinking you too delicate to be a
soldier's wife, or a doctor's for that matter, and you have more
presence of mind than me.  Why didn't I think to head off Bellecoeur in
such a way?"

"I am glad you did not, for you might not have got away with it.  I am
pretty sure he does not even mean to have me arrested."

"I should think not, a pretty tale it would be.  I love you better and
better, child.  What is that?"

Elizabeth ran to the window.  "They are back--Jason and

Clive and Tony--oh, no!"

"Not wounded?"

"No, but quite drunk.  How like them to leave us in sus

Besieged pense like this."  Elizabeth ran into the hall and landed in
Clive's arms first.

"There, there--all's we!!"  but I brought Jason here to sober him up.
His father might not quite like..."

"His father is here," Lord Weir said sternly from the door, causing
Jason to stagger back into Tony and almost upset him.  "I heard these
English troops turned into an undisciplined rabble as soon as the
battle was over.  Now I see the truth of it."

Jason grinned at him.  His father came and embraced him.  Elizabeth led
Clive into the drawing room and Tony stumbled after them.

"You are not angry, Father?"  Jason asked.

"I'm just relieved to see you alive.  If you want to study medicine and
marry Miss Falcrest, I will do everything I can to help you.  You need
not worry about Miss Moreford anymore."

"I could not oblige you in that.  It would have been like marrying my
sister--I mean..."

"Good Lord!  Is she one of Blyly's brood, as well?  Why didn't you tell
me?"

"How could I betray Mother?  Thank God women keep better track of these
things than men do.  So you knew all along."

"Yes, or did by the time Em was born: I confess it did matter to me in
those days.  I tried to treat you like the others, but you sensed the
difference.  It broke my heart sometimes to see you trying so hard to
win me over, not even knowing why !  couldn't feel close to you.  But
Em ... I couldn't help but love her."

"Don't ever let her find out," Jason pleaded.

"Of course not.  Once I realized what Geoff was turning into ...
perhaps he could not help it.  I was just like him in my younger
days."

"And Alton?"

"Much as it pains me to admit it, Alton is mine.  I have to believe he
is some odd throwback, though."

Jason laughed.  "It was a shock, but I'm glad I know now--I mean that
it was not me you didn't like."

"I have come to care for you and Em more than my other two.  I wish to
God you were my children.  The bad blood is in me, Jason, and I will
not be sorry to see an end of it.  You and Em are the only hope of
carrying on the family."

"And still you love Mother."

"I ruined her whole life by insisting on marrying her.  And I almost
forced you into making a similar mistake.  I don't know what I was
thinking of."

"Blyly must have been a monster to have done that twice.  If she had
married him she would not have been happy."

"We will never know.  He died a hero.  The shine has never worn off
him.  She still loves that handsome, smiling face she remembers."

"Do I favor him much?"  Jason asked hesitantly.

"I used to think so before.  Now you look more like a Weir."

"Then I'm glad.  You taught me so much.  I cannot think of you in any
way but as my father."

"Thank you, Jason."

"But I will have to tell Elizabeth."

"I had best leave you to it then.  She is a remarkable woman."

Lord Weir opened the door to the drawing room and jerked his thumb at
Clive and Tony, who scrambled out, laughing.

"You are up early, love," Jason mumbled, bracing himself against the
wall.

"Coming at the day from the other end, love," Elizabeth whispered as
she fell into his arms.

"Every time I see you it's like the first time.  You make me forget
what I was going to say."

"Perhaps it's the ale."

"I'm sorry if I worried you with that silly duel Race did not even
appear.  His cousin came and delivered an apology, which surprised me.
The fellow even breakfasted with us.  Elizabeth, them is something I
must know.  If we are to be married there can be no secrets between us,
even if it means a broken engagement..."

"Don't say that!  I had to go."  She pulled away from him.  "I could
not let him kill you."

' What?"

"I was only intending to hold him at gunpoint until the hour was past.
But he tried to get away so I shot him."  You shot Race?  My God, did
you kill him?"  "No, of course not."

"But, but where did all this happen."

"In his bedroom.  I got into the house through a downstairs window."

"You did?"  Jason was noticing the condition of her clothes.

"It was not all that difficult."

"Was he alone?"

"I did have some qualms about that, but I thought the night before a
duel he might just be sleeping."

"No," Jason whispered with a smile, coming to her and shaking her
gently, "I mean did anyone see you?"

"His man, the surgeon and his seconds.  They must have been on the way
to get him, so my plan would not have worlded."  "Plan?.

"I was going to hold him at gunpoint until well past six so that you
would be safe from him."

"Elizabeth."  He hugged her, then looked down at her face.  "Such a
desperate thing to do."

"I could not leave it to chance," she said, pushing back to look up at
his face.  "I have done everything I could think of to keep him away
from you.  I thought that he would eventually lose interest in me."

"So that's why you have been acting so strangely of late?"

"I'm sorry.  I know I hurt you, but he had me so frightened.  If he
happened to be in a passion he very well might have killed you."

"He frightened you, so you went after him with a gun.  That takes real
courage.  Where did you shoot him?"

"In the shoulder.  He lunged at me when he heard the others on the
stairs.  Am you angry with me?"

"Why should I be?  That's better than I could have done."

"You are laughing at me.  You are just like your father."  "How odd
that you should say so.  I was going to confess that I am illegitimate
and let you out of the engagement, but it Sounds so tame compared to
your news."

"Is that all--as though I would care about such a thing!"

"Them is something else," Jason said, holding her at arm's length with
an effort.

"The war?"

"I am sometimes jolted out of my mason with anger."

"I am sometimes overcome by the most terrible rages myself," she
countered.

"I saw the fear on your face when I nearly choked Race."

"Surprise, not fear.  Such anger would never be directed against me."

"How can you be so sum of that?"

"Because I have seen it in Clive, because I have felt it myself, when I
thought Race was going to kill you.  If he had made me angrier he would
be dead now.  I would be regretting it, of course."

"I'm glad Clive never taught you to shoot, then."

"If I had been Marissa, he would certainly be dead," Elizabeth assured
him.

"No doubt, and the body neatly disposed of in the Thames.  She is an
awesome woman, but then, so are you."

"Do you think I shall be arrested" she asked to distract him.  '

"I think it highly unlikely.  Race would never let a story

Besieged like that get about.  Most likely everyone will think I shot
him and he will let them."

"Can he buy the silence of so many?"

"He can try.  Why so troubled still?  Thanks to you it has all come
right.  Or are you resenting me taking the credit for shooting Race?"

"Oh, no, I don't care about that," Elizabeth said quite seriously.  She
looked up at Jason's chuckle.  "Jason, you are laughing at me again."

"In amazement, love.  And delight."

Jason took Elizabeth in his arms and felt he had finally come home,
that she was his only safe refuge.  He kissed her perfect hair, mussed
and tangled from her cloak; her perfect face, splotched now with tears;
her perfect lips, trembling still with her latest fright.  Elizabeth
was not perfect and Jason was glad for it.