“I have thought of that, sir.” He offered a deprecatory smile in the face of Elizabeth’s scathing glare. “Forgive me, but I was trained to make quick decisions and to ask questions later. Will you marry me before I go?”
“But… but you are never coming back!” She gestured helplessly to her father. “This is madness!”
“Theydon’t know my plans, and for that matter, neither do I. I could die on the field next month, or I could win an honourable retirement, or I might spend the next twenty years in Africa. Or, I might be sent back here. None of that matters now—what matters is that you need a miracle…” He stopped, blinked as his gaze caught something behind her, and smiled. “And I just found one.”
Elizabeth whirled just in time to see Billy, sauntering along with his hands in his pockets and glancing all round in confusion as he heard the varied shouts, insults, and epithets from those gathered in the street. “Dear heavens, no…” she whispered.
“He is right, Elizabeth,” her father said. “Would that I could afford to move us all somewhere else! Had I but put by a bit for the lean times, or had I been much of a father to Lydia—”
“Papa, be reasonable! None of this is your fault.”
He touched her cheek, and for the first time, she noted the weary, greyed look of a man who laboured each day under the sun, slowly marking her father. “None of it is your fault either, my Lizzy, but I could have prevented it. Do you care for him?”
“For the colonel? I… I think of him as a very dear friend, and I am sorry to see him go.”
“And you might have come to feel more for him, in time?”
She shrugged. “Perhaps… probably, but I knew from the start that I could not think of him, so I never did.”
“I suggest, Lizzy, that you think of him now, and rapidly.”
“Think what! Can he really want to m-m-m—”
“Lizzy,” Jane spoke quietly at her shoulder, “it would most assuredly solve your predicament.”
“But marriage! You heard what he said. What if I never see him again?”
“Let him worry about that,” her father said. “You have heard your mother. He is a duke’s son!”
“He is not! He—”
“My point, Lizzy, is that he is not without connections. Surely, the man has resources at his disposal to secure your welfare, and mercifully, he seems inclined to do it. Or did you plan to wait for a better offer?”
Elizabeth’s protests were cut off by the colonel’s return. He was red-faced and triumphant as a very bewildered Billy trailed in his wake. “We are in luck. Your cousin is at his leisure and is willing to marry us at once.”
She met his eyes with grave hesitation. Her throat felt tight, her stomach knotted, and even her very legs seemed locked. “Would it be too much to speak privately for a moment, Colonel?”
“The name is Richard. By all means.” He extended his hand and led her a few feet away, around the corner of a building, and touched his fingers to her lips before she could speak. “I know it is not what you expected. Can you not see? Your honour will be salvaged, and you will be free to do as you please.”
“But you are leaving! Even if we were… were….”
“Do you not know that every soldier marching off to war wishes he had a sweetheart to leave behind? Come, am I really so objectionable?”
“Oh, nonsense. We hardly know one another!”
“Elizabeth—” he leaned a little closer—“look around you. Do you see any better options? Any other man whose hand you would prefer? If so, I will step away at once, and wish you well.”
“Well, I… no.”
“You see, your uncle has the right of it. I am probably the only man in town who could be presumed your beau, and a marriage will silence these vicious rumours once and for all. None could stand to accuse you of… what they are accusing you of.”
Elizabeth closed her eyes and drew a breath in a desperate quest for a moment of sanity. “And what becomes of me, if I am committed in marriage to a man I may never see again?”
“I can see to it that some of my pay is sent to you. That would help you establish yourself somewhere else, would it not? And… well… soldiers are sometimes killed.”
She shook her head. “No! I don’t want—”
“I only meant to say that there need be no expectation for you to keep the hearth warm for me indefinitely. It’s not like news of the South African front is in ready supply out here.” He shrugged sheepishly. “What do you say, Elizabeth? Marry me?”
