LITMIR.BIZ

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of the empires that have fallen, just on that mistaken assumption? Oh, and notice that I’m telling you something important, and have been, since the day we met.”

      Dany sighed. “Yes, but I’m very persuasive.” Then she lowered her head to cover her blush, as the true import of what she’d just said struck home.

      They walked along the bank of the stream, Dany ignoring the beauty of their surroundings, barely able to contain herself as Coop apparently searched for a way to tell her about that day at Quatre Bras.

      “You know that we were in Brussels, awaiting Bonaparte, hoping he’d lag behind Blücher’s arrival, as we were very possibly outnumbered. Plus, it was Bonaparte, the acknowledged master of military strategy. Wellington had his victories, but he’d never before faced the emperor.”

      “May I nod, indicating I do know that?”

      “Yes, you may nod,” he agreed, dropping another kiss on the top of her head.

      “Good. You may also take that nod as meaning please get to the point.”

      “I’m more used to giving orders, you know. But I will attempt to be brief. Bonaparte was on the loose, and gathering support at an alarming rate. This less than a year after the Peace Celebrations and Prinny acting cock of the walk as the man who’d bested the upstart Napoleon. Our Prince Regent apparently was curled up under the covers in his bed, fearing the English populace might rise in support of the common man. Remember, our returning soldiers had not come home to a land suddenly running with milk and honey, but to half pay and soaring prices, and were quickly forgotten. The French had to be soundly defeated in Belgium, once and for all, and Bonaparte put in a cage he could not possibly escape. Wellington and our allies were a strong force to be reckoned with but, rather like Ned Givens, Prinny didn’t quite like the odds. He, or probably his advisers, decided to even those odds.”

      “That was fairly concise, thank you. Go on.”

      “I suppose I should release you from your vow of silence, since you seem beyond adhering to it, anyway. Very well. Bonaparte had one weakness. Two actually. His wife, the Empress Marie Louise, and his son, Napoleon the Second, born the King of Rome, among other titles. Both had fled France and were safely ensconced in Austria, where the empress supposedly formally renounced her husband as a criminal, opening the door for all of Europe to capture and cage him.”

      Dany nodded again, and then again. She was aware of the story, and had wondered how much influence the empress’s family had exerted on her to brand the father of her child a criminal.

      “Bonaparte was desperate to be reunited with his wife and child. Prinny and his advisers...well, it appears they decided to give him that opportunity. If not them precisely, somehow or other Prinny had to be in on the plot up to his third chin, or else I never would have been declared the hero of anything, let alone named a baron.”

      “The woman in the field. That was the empress?” Dany quickly lowered her head, and apologized. “Forgive me. Go on. But please hurry.”

      “I don’t know who the woman was—we didn’t exchange introductions—but she could curse like a fishmonger, in both French and German, and gifted me with a few nasty scratches on my cheek. Once I got her safely into the trees and stood her up, and her cloak fell away, I was immediately struck by her resemblance to the empress. I’d seen portraits, you understand, not that I wasn’t helped by the fact that she was wearing what appeared to be diamonds, and had Bonaparte’s seal embroidered on the bodice of her gown.

      “The children, as I found out once the woman promised the truth in return for her release, were local orphans, most all of them the same age as the Prince of Rome. They—the they to always remain a mystery to me—had been deciding which orphan best resembled the boy, and had all of them stashed in a cottage, presumably safe while they went off to negotiate with one of Bonaparte’s marshals. She heard the sounds of approaching soldiers, the servants ran off, leaving them behind, and she decided it would be safer to follow the servants’ lead than find herself trapped behind the stone wall. At any rate, the Grande Armée surrenders, all the marshals are given pardons and Bonaparte is generously allowed to meet with his wife and heir one last time. Oh, and with the son officially named heir to the throne of France. He would never get close enough to realize he wasn’t seeing his true wife and son, of course. They’d simply be displayed, from a distance.”

      “Would his marshals have agreed, would Bonaparte? Again, I apologize. But it sounds so far-fetched.”

      He stopped, turned her about and they began retracing their steps to the gazebo.

      “Again, we’ll never know. Bonaparte’s love for his son, and his own legacy, could have been the deciding factors. He had to know, in his heart, that his cause was lost. But regardless of the possible outcome, the world could not know that England had even attempted such a dishonorable scheme, especially if it failed. I let the woman go—or should I say she ran off the moment I released her arm—and took the orphans back to camp with me.

      “I believe she must have met up with her employers and told them what happened, and they would have immediately realized I’d seen the woman, spoken with the woman, seen the crest embroidered on her gown. Directly after Bonaparte fled the field that last day, since I hadn’t conveniently died in battle, I was scooped up and whisked back to England, to meet with the Prince Regent and his cronies. You know the rest.”

      “The title, the estate. The threat that accompanied them. Yet what else could you have done?”

      “I could have died in battle, and His Royal Highness could have merely commissioned a statue in some far corner of Green Park or somewhere, and spent far less money. Still, I like to tell myself I made the only sensible choice in the circumstances. I wasn’t about to open my country to ridicule and censure. I wasn’t quite ready to spend my days waiting for some sort of fatal accident. I reluctantly allowed myself to become the famed and feted hero of Quatre Bras, and Prinny basked in that reflected glory. I think it was another good fortnight before any oranges were flung at his carriage when he went out and about.”

      Now Dany did raise her head, to smile at Coop, to see her smile returned.

      “And that’s the whole of it?”

      “That’s the whole of it, yes. Strangely, I feel better, having told you.”

      “I’m glad. Will you tell the others?”

      “Never, no. You’ll have to keep the secret with me.”

      “I will, I will,” she vowed fervently. “Not because you weren’t brave and honorable, but because you were brave and honorable. You do know that, don’t you? At the end of the day, you saved those children, that woman, at great danger to yourself, and with no expectation of reward. You’re a hero, Cooper Townsend. Don’t ever forget that, please.”

      They were back at the gazebo now, and Coop held her elbow as he assisted her up the three steps to the interior, hung with gauzy white draperies and sporting padded benches along its eight-sided perimeter, with a large white linen chaise at its center, a soft yellow blanket draped over the back.

      Dany imagined Darby had personally designed the interior, and the placement of the gazebo itself, to his own specifications.

      And here comes another blush to give away my thoughts. Shame on me for even thinking about such things in the first place.

      Still, she tugged the coverlet half onto her lap as she semireclined on one side of the chaise. She bounced twice, testing its softness. It was very comfortable.

      And secluded.

      And...convenient.

      “Dany?”

      She looked up at Coop, blinking.

      “Yes,” she said. She didn’t ask, inquire, question. She said yes.

      Hopefully he would understand...

       CHAPTER

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