The Accidental Duke (The Mad Matchmaking Men of Waterloo Book 1) by Devlin, Barbara (love letters to the dead .TXT) 📕

him that her motives were pure and to give the teachings a chance. Yes, she should have told him the source of what he deemed her uncanny ability to soothe his troubled soul, but she suspected he would reject Larrey’s ideas simply because the doctor was French. It seemed a reasonable conclusion. Hoping for an opportune moment, when her husband would be more receptive, to share the innovative perspective, she delayed. However well-intentioned, that had been a huge miscalculation on her part. One she feared he might never forgive.

Following their row, while she broke her fast, he sat on the settee, flipping through the pages. He took his lunch from a tray perched beside him. He ate dinner in the same place. Nary a word passed between them for the remains of the day, much to her chagrin, because she would have loved to examine Larrey’s deductions through her husband’s perspective.

Another thunderous roar shook the house, and she thought she heard Anthony shout. In a rush, she flung back the covers and dropped her legs over the edge of the bed. Then she paused. What if she overreacted? What if naught were amiss? Another cry caught her ear. Standing, she eased her feet into her slippers and grabbed her robe.

Again, her tormented soldier bellowed.

“I’m coming, my lord.” She ran to the doors and flung open a single oak panel. In the sitting room, she spotted him, slumped to the right and still hugging the book. As she tugged on the heavy tome, he rolled his head from side to side and muttered incoherent gibberish. “Shh, my darling, else Shaw’s henchmen may assail us.”

“The cannons. They attack the center. They attack the center.” He winced and flinched, and his agony, so apparent, gnawed at her gut. “Boney advances on the crest of Mont Saint Jean. We are too close. Too close.”

“No, my lord,” she stated in a soft voice, in an attempt to calm. To soothe. She wiped his damp brow and tried to hush him, as she whispered reassurances. “There are no cannons here, and you are fine. Are you chilled? Shall I stoke the embers?”

“We must retrench. We must fall back to the line and gather what survives of our forces, else we will lose the day.” Ignoring her pleas, he gave vent to an unrecognizable exclamation, something almost inhuman remarkably timed with another resounding crash of thunder. “Lively, men. Make haste. Make haste to La Haye Sainte, else we are doomed.”

“Anthony, please, you must be quiet.” His trauma, almost palpable, spoke to her on an elementary but nonetheless powerful level she could not quite identify. Desperate and unable to free him from his imaginary prison, she shook him hard, and at last he opened his eyes and searched her face. “It is me, Arabella, and you are safe. We remain locked in our bedchamber, in your father’s house.”

“Can you not hear the gunfire and the mournful cries?” He grabbed her by the forearm and wrenched her close, so he could hug her about the waist. “Do you not smell the smoke?” He sucked in a breath and nodded toward the overstuffed chair near the window. “Look there. Do you not see the enemy hides in the shadows, waiting to attack? We are surrounded, and we are routed, but we cannot yield.”

“No, my lord, there is no enemy here, and there are no guns. What you hear is a storm. Mother Nature throws quite a row, tonight. That is all.” She cradled his cheeks and held his turbulent gaze. “I, alone, am with you, and I will never leave you.”

Just when she thought she reached him, he released her and retreated. With his hand covering his eyes, he groaned. Thunder rattled the windows, and Anthony reverted to his fitful state. Clenching his teeth, he scrunched his face and emitted a spine-chilling growl that gave her gooseflesh.

“Make it stop,” he begged and thrashed with his arm. “Please, by all that is holy, make it stop, as I can bear no more.”

“Tell me what to do, and I will do it.” Her mind raced in all directions, and she recounted Larrey’s methods for calming an agitated veteran. In rapid succession, she recalled the various suggestions. Seizing on a course of action, she grasped her husband by his shoulders and jolted him. “My lord, focus on my voice. Listen to the words I speak, and breathe. Inhale and exhale. Do you hear me? Can you do as I ask?”

“Aye.” He nodded once and compressed his lips. “I will try.”

“Do you know who I am?” she inquired and uttered a silent prayer that he answered in the affirmative, because she knew not what to do otherwise. “Do you recognize me?”

“Of course, I do.” He sighed, a mournful, heavy expression she felt down to her toes, and she resolved to support him, come what may. A moment passed. It seemed like a lifetime until he, at last, replied, “You are Arabella, my wife.”

“Yes.” Perched on tiptoes, she massaged his temples, and he moaned an approval. “Where are we, at present?”

“Surrey.” He swallowed, and she coveted a small victory. “At one of my father’s estates.”

“Are there any French soldiers here?” Beneath her fingertips, he tensed, and she kneaded her way along the sides of his neck. “Do the cannons still fire?”

Just as she posed her query, an ear-splitting thunderclap rocked the house, bathing the sitting room in blinding staccato bursts of silvery light. A cheerful pastorale painting dislodged from its hook on the wall and landed with a muffled thud on the Aubusson rug, and a book fell from a side table. Trinkets clinked atop the escritoire, and under her feet the floor tremored.

When Anthony lunged, she braced to extend or withstand whatever remedy he required to endure his latest episode of nostalgia, and she vowed not to fail him. The first touch gave her little warning of the incoming tide of emotion he unleashed on her, reminiscent of their heated, impromptu interlude the night