Jane Lark - The Lost Love of a Soldier - A timeless Historical romance for fans of War and Peace

Ellen nodded against his chest, not knowing what else to do.

His palm lay on her hair, a gentle weight of reassurance.

How could he touch her with such gentleness yet do what he’d just done?

“You’ve had a taste of death tonight, Ellen. Has it made you wish to turn back? I will take you back if it’s changed your mind.”

Had it changed her mind?

She could not remain with her family if she’d stayed at home. Her father would force her into marriage with another man, and what then? She would have to endure ugliness anyway, perhaps ugliness worse than the death of a thief who chose to kill or be killed.

But Paul had killed a man…

She pulled away, although her hands still gripped Paul’s greatcoat either side of his waist in fists. “Was killing him the only way?” Maybe she showed her naivety by asking. But she was a little afraid of him.

His eyes studied her in the flickering orange light of the tallow candles which burned in the room. “Not the only way, no. I could have brought him down from his horse and shot him in the shoulder or the arm. But it is my instinct, Ellen. In battle, a soldier cannot risk simply wounding a man. Otherwise, as you fight on, a dozen men could be aiming a pistol at your back and…. you were in the carriage… and I did not know if there were more men in the woods.”

She could not judge the colour of his eyes in the candlelight, but she could see regret and pain. He had killed, but he did not wish to kill. He was not a murderer. Sorrow caught in his gaze, as if ghosts walked about him.

She pressed herself against him, holding him. This time it was not to receive comfort but to give it.

“Ellen?” His hand ran over her hair. “Do you want me to take you back?”

“No.” She did not want to go back, but she did not know how to go forward.

~

Ellen’s answer was warmth seeping through the clothing covering his chest, into his heart. It would have hurt to let her go. But he would have done it, if she’d wished it. Thank God, she did not. He’d promised himself barely hours ago to protect her from the brutality of this world, and he’d not even reached Gretna before he’d failed. “You are strong, Ellen. You are going to have to face unpleasant things if you follow the drum with me. But you will survive.”

She sobbed and more tears dampened his collar in answer. He held her tighter for a moment. But then he set her away. If her father was behind them, they’d lost hours… “We need to leave, Ellen. Are you ready?”

Her gaze met his, flooded with the uncertainty he’d dispelled before this incident. She was brave and strong, and she loved him, he knew it, but he could see she was also a little afraid of him now.

A sigh left his throat. He could do nothing. He had been trained to kill, and he had killed. He was a soldier; it was his instinct to fight and protect.

He pushed his thoughts aside, along with the memories of dead, dying and wounded men. They had to reach the border before her father reached them. If he’d followed.

Within a quarter hour they were in the carriage with freshly heated bricks, his weapons tucked away once more, and blankets piled over them as the temperature had dropped still further. The next stop would be Penrith. They were nearly there… nearly.

Ellen pressed against him, seeking comfort, her arms about his midriff, but her body felt stiff and her fingers trembled a little, implying her shock had not really ebbed.

Neither had his.

She went to sleep, her head resting against his chest. He laid his arm over her shoulders, and took comfort in her beauty.

As she slept, he could not. The call of battle still raged in his blood. There had never been any real danger, he was by a mile more experienced in a fight than the highwayman, but a murderous desire had swept over him; the same which captured him on a battlefield.

Kill or be killed.

Ellen was right; he was skilled enough to have maimed the man and no more. But the thought of her in danger… God , he could not bear it. He had not stopped for one moment to consider doing anything less than kill. Visions of battlefields, of corpses, and men’s eyes clouding with death before they fell, had played through his head, but his heart had only felt Ellen and nothing of the bitter world he fought in.

He’d fought for her, to keep her safe, to get to her, to return to the beauty he’d found and forget death.

What was his intent for the future then?

To keep her safe he would have to march across enemy lines and slay every man.

A throaty sound of self-deprecation erupted from his chest. Bloody hell . It was what he wished to do, but he would end up dead from such stupid ideas, and that would hardly protect her, and what was the point of her companionship and comfort if he was dead?

He looked out the window, his gaze scanning the passing treeline. He’d left the lantern smothered, and the curtain open, so he might look out for any risk of attack, merely to ease his battle ready nerves. But now what he saw was snow. Ahh . Damn . Why tonight? Why could it not have waited one more day?

As the carriage rolled on at its hard pace, bouncing over the frozen ruts in the road, he watched the large white flakes fall. They settled. It was the sort of snow which could form deep drifts. But maybe it was a blessing. If it fell thick it would hold her father back too. If… he’d followed.

The snow formed a swirling cloud of white and Paul’s heartbeat pulsed, his blood racing as hard as the carriage horses’ pace. This was not now only a race against her father, but a race against the weather. How soon before the roads become impassable?

He watched the white flurries for what must have been two hours, as they swept against the pane of glass in the carriage door. Then the snow subsided and instead he watched the blue glow which shone back off the white blanket covering everything. The carriage slid a number of times but fortunately the frozen ruts in the road, beneath the white layer, gave the horses and carriage wheels grip.

He remembered all the travelling he’d done in the years of the Peninsular War, marching hundreds of miles. He’d not been tucked inside a warm carriage. He’d been outside trudging through the cold and urging his men to ignore their numb feet, when his were also numb and his fingers burning with cold too.

How would Ellen survive days like that? True she would be with the baggage train and have the luxury of a respite in the carts. But there were times when the carts got stuck and the women had to get out and walk through knee deep mud, snow or thickets, and then in the summer there were days of blistering heat…

He’d been a fool, to bring her with him. Cruel. Selfish. But yet again he shoved the thought aside as he did with the haunting memories of war. She was happy to be with him. He would not take her back. She was his now, his comfort, and he would be hers. She would be the thing that brought his mind back from war to peace.

Maybe it had been a good thing that she’d faced the encounter with the highwayman, maybe it meant, when she faced the reality of war and wished she’d not left England, he could say, “But you did know…”

Had he become such a selfish bloody bastard then?

Yes, where Ellen was concerned. A thousand times, yes. He loved her.

It was not until the sunshine finally began glinting on the snow, reflecting gold light as it rose above the horizon, that Paul finally rested his shoulder against the corner of the carriage, lifted one foot up onto the opposite seat and fell asleep.

Ellen woke to find the carriage flooded with natural light. It was appeared to be late morning. When she sat upright she saw a carpet of snow outside. Everything was white. The world looked pure again, denying the memories of a man lying still on the ground beside a dark pool of blood as Paul stood over him with a sword and a pistol still gripped in his hands.