Page 1 of Dangerous Illusions (Dangerous #1)

Throughout the seemingly endless, rainy night and dismal morning they had occupied a long, low ridge bordering the plateau called Mont-Saint-Jean a mile south of the Belgian village of Waterloo, their squadron flanked on the right by the rest of Major General Sir William Ponsonby’s brigade and on the left by Major General Somerset’s.

The other nine brigades of Lord Uxbridge’s gallant corps of cavalry waited in the valley behind them, while the hillside below writhed with restless infantry units.

English artillery lined the entire crest of the ridge.

“Nonsense,” Gideon said crisply, but surveying the scene around them and feeling a surge of pity for the cold bodies, shaggy wet beards, and filthy clothes of his men, he repressed the impulse to say more, to reprimand the man whom for years he had counted more as friend than subordinate.

Penthorpe’s face was so mud-streaked that scarcely a freckle could be seen.

Even his hair, a flaming red that usually could be seen for miles, could be discerned now below his helmet only as more blobs of mud.

Realizing that the others, sharing Penthorpe’s physical discomfort, most likely shared at least some of his doubts as well, Gideon wished he could somehow relieve them.

The rain that had fallen so heavily all night did seem to have stopped, but the mists were still heavy in places and the ground saturated, with muddy pools filling every hollow.

Ahead, between their forces and Bonaparte’s, soggy wheat fields crisscrossed by two highroads sloped gently down for a quarter of a mile, then rose the same distance to a second ridge.

Peering again through his telescope, Gideon saw, less than six hundred yards away, dark enemy cannons mounted against the gray horizon.

The two armies now facing each other were almost equal in size, and he could see that Bonaparte had drawn his men up in three lines.

Clearly, his infantry would launch the attack, followed by the cavalry, while behind them, utterly formidable and terrifying, the famous French Guard, in their familiar tall bearskin hats, were poised to charge in for the kill.

“Gideon, what do you see?” Penthorpe repeated more urgently, moving nearer. “Dash it all, even from here it looks as if Boney’s about ready to make his move. We’ll soon be done for.”

“No, we won’t,” Gideon said, ignoring a small voice at the back of his mind that traitorously urged him to share Penthorpe’s fears.

Still peering through the telescope, knowing full well that his men would quickly sense any lack of confidence in him, he added firmly, “The Duke knows precisely what he’s about. ”

“Dash it all, how can you say so?” Penthorpe demanded. “We’ve already had to retreat once!”

Looking straight at him, Gideon said, “That withdrawal, my lad, was a vastly different affair from any retreat. Come now, think about it,” he added when Penthorpe looked skeptical.

“The move from Quatre Bras was accomplished at no more than a smart parade march. The Duke wanted to be nearer Blücher, that’s all, for he had determined that Boney was attempting to drive a wedge between the two forces, so as to defeat Blücher before he had to deal with us.

Nearly did it, too,” he added grimly, but in that same moment the memory that Wellington had outsmarted Bonaparte brought his usual confidence surging back.

What the Duke had done once, he could certainly be depended upon to do again.

“They say Blücher was dashed near done for,” Penthorpe said.

“His horse fell with him,” Gideon said applying an eye to the telescope again.

He had heard Wellington tell Lord Uxbridge that the splendid white charger given the Prussian commander by England’s Prince Regent had been killed in that battle, but seeing nothing to be gained by imparting that information just now, added only, “Blücher was merely bruised, nothing more.”

“Merely bruised,” Penthorpe muttered. “Look here, Gideon, I’ve got a devilish queer notion we ain’t going to see England again.

Daresay that impudent young woman of mine won’t ever know what she’s missed.

Nor will I,” he added in a more despondent tone.

“Ain’t even laid eyes on the wench yet, but my uncle’s as good as promised me she’s worth twenty thousand a year, and truth is, I could do with more income.

Still and all, I ain’t a man to rush headlong into things.

By Jove,” he added, clapping a hand to his head, “what am I thinking? She’s from Cornwall, ain’t she?

Dashed if it ever even crossed my mind before, but she must be better known to you than she is to me.

Lived there for years, didn’t you, before your father came into his title? ”

Lowering the telescope, grateful for the change of topic, Gideon smiled and said, “Deverill Court is in Cornwall, right enough, and my father still seems to spend a good portion of the year there; however, I cannot really say I’ve lived there, Andy.

What with school and the military, I’ve not done so for years. ”

“Still, you must know the family,” Penthorpe insisted.

Gideon’s smile widened. “It is possible that I do, of course; however, not only have you scarcely mentioned your betrothal before now, but you’ve never once told me the chit’s surname.

I’ll grant you that Daintry is a name I’d remember, especially since there is only one family I know of that might run to heiresses of such magnitude, but as I recall, the Earl of St. Merryn’s daughter is called Susan, so it cannot be she. ”

“He’s got two daughters,” Penthorpe said.

“Fact is, it was Daintry’s being Lady Susan Tarrant’s sister that let me swallow such a dashed odd betrothal at all, and the reason I haven’t talked much about it till now is that I was in no great rush to try explaining how it came about that I’ve never so much as clapped eyes on the wench I’m intended to marry. ”

“Fact is,” Gideon retorted with a teasing grin, “that you put off talking about it because you always put off things you don’t much want to do.

You are the worst procrastinator I know.

But tell me what Lady Susan had to do with all this.

I don’t know her, but I’ve been told she’s something of a beauty. ”

Penthorpe sighed. “I don’t mind telling you, if I’d been eligible ten years ago when she made her come-out, I’d have tried my best to cut Seacourt out, though I haven’t got an ounce of his cleverness with females, and I was only nineteen at the time.

You remember him, don’t you? Several years ahead of us, of course, but an Eton man, all the same. ”

Gideon nodded. Certain memories of Sir Geoffrey Seacourt made him frown, but Penthorpe did not wait for comment.

“Don’t signify,” he said, “because I hadn’t a notion then that I’d come into the title.

Didn’t do so until four years ago, you know, and didn’t have a penny to bless myself before.

If I had shown my face to St. Merryn then, he’d have sent me packing, but now, for reasons best known to himself and my uncle—school chums like us, they were—he’s hot to match his younger daughter with my humble self, and he wants the whole business handled by proxy, which makes me think Lady Daintry must be past praying for.

Wench is twenty, after all, so she’s nearly on the shelf.

When my uncle pressed me to do so, I agreed to a proxy betrothal, but I dashed well want to see her in the flesh before I marry her.

Dash it, any man would. You do know the family, you say? ”

“Oh, yes. Their land adjoins ours on the moor for several miles. The fact is that my father—”

“Good God, don’t say Jervaulx harbors ambitions for you in that direction! Of course, it’s only natural if St. Merryn’s daughters will come into twenty thousand a year, but look here, Gideon, if I had known—”

“No, no,” Gideon said, laughing. “Quite the reverse. I just told you I wasn’t even aware of a second daughter.

I’ve never laid eyes on the first, and I don’t expect to do so unless by some unforeseen circumstance our paths should cross.

My father and theirs don’t speak—never have, as far as I know.

Our respective grandfathers had a falling-out long before I was born, when my branch of the Deverill tree was still the junior one, and there has not been an amiable word spoken between the families since.

I don’t even know enough about the Tarrants to tell you if Lady Daintry is as pretty as her sister. ”

“Well, she ain’t, because I do know what she looks like,” Penthorpe said, reaching into his inner coat and withdrawing an oval miniature in a gold frame.

Handing it to Gideon, he said, “There you are. My uncle sent it. Too dark for my taste, but she’s pretty enough, I suppose.

Not that one can go by miniatures. Only look what happened to the Regent, thinking Caroline of Brunswick was a fine-looking woman, then getting stuck with such an untidy, vulgar sort of wench in the end. ”

Gideon murmured, “But then, Caroline was shown a picture of Prince Florizel, as he liked to call himself, painted a good ten years or more before she saw it. And you cannot say Prinny was any great prize on the Marriage Mart, Andy, aside from his rank, that is.” Gazing at the miniature Penthorpe had handed him, he didn’t think his friend would be as gravely disappointed as the Prince of Wales had been twenty years before.