Grinning in return, Frederica nodded. ‘I like being useful and proving that a lady can be just as helpful as a man.’
‘I’ve never thought about it.’
‘Women’s rights?’
Samuel cleared his throat. ‘Forgive me, I was speaking about myself and not about you. I meant that I had never thought about my future and what I wanted. I suppose that I assumed that it was already mapped out for me. I would take care of my family’s estates and preform my duties in Parliament. I have not considered whatIwanted.’
‘You should.’
‘I’ve always wanted to be like your father.’
A laugh broke from her lips. ‘But, Samuel, he is terrible at estate management. My mother oversaw our estates before Wick took charge. And I do not think he has attended Parliament more than a handful of times. He only cares about his family and his animals. The rest of the two-legged world is on its own as far as he is concerned.’
He leaned towards her and their legs brushed against each other. It set Frederica’s pulse racing again.
‘I did not mean that I wish to become a naturalist or a scientist,’ Samuel said. ‘Rather, I want to be a father like him. He played with his children. Taught them how to do things. And every time that I visited, he always had a line of little ones trailing behind him. Hampford never acted annoyed or impatient. Quite the opposite, he always seemed delighted that his children wished to be with him.’
Frederica laughed with her mouth closed. Her little sisters, Helen and Becca, were Papa’s favourites because they loved animals as much as he did. They still followed him around. They were all three probably exploring the local fauna and flora as well as wildlife in Greece. Her chest ached from missing them.
They were quiet on the rest of the ride. Samuel’s keen eyes were watching for threats and Frederica’s mind spun with thoughts. She sighed with relief when they reached Rue de Lombard just as the sun began to set. Jim moved to help her from her horse, but Samuel was there first. She slid down into his arms and felt safe for the first time that day. Leaning her head against his shoulder, she hugged him tightly.
Samuel rubbed soft circles on her back. ‘You’re safe now.’
‘You are too,’ she mumbled into his shoulder. The bullet could have easily hit him, as well. She wanted him to live another month. Hundreds of months.
Stepping back, he released her waist and back, but moved his hand to her chin. ‘I want a future with you. I want to live on the cheap in a palace full of our children. I want to teach them how to ride, swim, and hunt with you. And then I want to help you wash them with your scented soaps after they have got all filthy and scratched up from playing together. I would not mind helping you wash either...in exchange for certain liberties.’
Her face felt warm, as did the rest of her body. It was not just his flirtatious words, although she was not a ninny and understood their sexual meaning. It was the pureness of his dreams. Samuel needed to be the father that his own had not been. But most importantly, he said that he wanted those things with her.
‘You have beautiful dreams,’ she said, grabbing his wrist and kissing the palm of his hand, before lightly pressing her lips to his mouth. ‘Thank you for letting me be a part of them. I shall have Jim bring you over a cake of soap.’
Chapter Seventeen
The next morning, Samuel’s nerves were shot and he felt emotionally drained. These were not uncommon consequences of spending time with his betrothed. Although, it would not be fair to blame her for yesterday. He had felt goose bumps on his arm before he even met Frederica that morning. He knew it had been dangerous to make that trip with her. The battle was getting closer. The air felt charged with it.
He was no longer a lad who wished to prove himself to Wellington—another surrogate father figure. Samuel knew that there was no glory and very little dignity in a battlefield death. An officer’s body received more deference than a soldier’s, but they were still piled together in a barn or a charnel house until friends or family could take the corpse and have it properly buried. The common soldiers’ bodies were thrown into mass graves with no names and sometimes without markers.
No mourners.
No funerals.
This would be the end thousands of his men faced after their battle with Napoleon’s armies. At seventeen, he had thought that he had nothing to lose. And now he knew that he had everything to lose. Frederica, his family, a future with a palace full of children. Slender Billy was right. He could not wait until after the war to tell Frederica his feelings. She deserved so much more than a death letter.
Exhaling, Samuel sat in the corner of the room, unnoticed. He watched Colonel Scovell bow to the new chief staff officer, Colonel Sir William Howe DeLancey, a man in his thirties with piercing dark eyes and curly hair. The man towered a head over Scovell as he escorted him to Wellington’s office. DeLancey stayed at the door and Scovell entered and left the room alone. Samuel would have loved to hear what they were saying. But it was bad form to spy on your own side.
A few minutes later, the Duke of Wellington opened the door and barked an order that all his staff should come immediately for a meeting. Samuel was one of the first of the twenty men to arrive. He sat next to Lord Fitzroy Somerset and Sir Alexander Gordon. Within five minutes all members of the staff were seated around the dining room. In the centre of the mahogany table was a large map of Europe. Strong and powerful like King Arthur of old, Wellington stood at the top of the oval table.
‘The intelligence I received last night from Grant suggests that the bulk of the French army is here in Paris protecting it,’ Wellington said, pointing to the city on the map. ‘He further suggests that over a hundred thousand men have been moved to the north of France and are coming our way with Napoleon to personally command.’
‘Then we have the advantage, Duke,’ Samuel said. ‘We have nearly ninety-two thousand men, and that is not including the Prussians.’
‘Napoleon’s presence on the field is worth forty thousand men,’ the general said gravely. ‘And his soldiers are veterans. They have fought before, unlike most of our soldiers, who are green, and the loyalty of the Dutch soldiers is particularly precarious—many are still committed to France.’
Somerset stood up, knocking his chair over. ‘The Prince of Orange has suggested that we go on the offensive and surprise Napoleon on his own turf.’
Wellington pressed his long thin fingers together. ‘In regard to offensive operations, my opinion is that, however strong we shall be in reference to the enemy, we should not extend ourselves further than is absolutely necessary, in order to facilitate the subsistence of the troops. His Royal Highness, the Prince of Orange, has presented his plan to me, and I do not approve of an extension from the Channel to the Alps, and I am convinced that it will be found not only fatal, but that the troops at such a distance on the left of our line will be entirely out of our position of the operations.’
Picking up his chair, Somerset sat back down. ‘What would you have us do, sir?’