“Upon my word,” slipped out of his mouth.
She was the picture of delicate grace and coy helplessness. She looked to the left and the right. Then she beheld the puddle in front of her and shuddered.
Finally, she lifted her dress, revealing silver ballroom slippers embroidered with pearls and a pair of fetching, trim ankles; and that was it. That finished them all, the entire lot of them. A collective groan of admiration rose through the yard.
Including that of Schneider.
Hartenberg threw him an irritated look. He maintained a stony silence as he watched the spectacle unfold with a deep frown.
Then the scrambling began.
Schneider made a motion to rush forward to be the first to rescue her, but was held back by an iron, merciless grip, and a stern command, “Stay.”
“But Your Excell—I mean, Herr Berg. Don’t you see that utterly divine creature? The puddle? How is she to descend from the carriage and get across it on her own?” Schneider’s shining eyes revealed that he’d slipped into the role of heroic Saint George rescuing the maiden, ready to slay a malicious dragon which had transformed itself into the shape of a puddle.
“Collect yourself, man. That puddle isn’t the Red Sea,” Hartenberg snapped. “Let her discover it on her own.”
There was no need, for there were sufficient men jostling to rush towards her, eager to rescue the damsel in distress. It was a spectacle, indeed.
One infantryman clearly won, kneeling smack into the deepest part of the puddle, gallantly extending his hand towards her, inviting her to step on his knee.
Schneider was clearly agitated that he himself could not rush to her aid. “Oh do let me go! That ruffian will muddy her dress. Can’t you see? She needs to be lifted across, but he needs to take her hand first, gently?—”
“Her dress? He is sullying his uniform!”Georg hissed. “I can hardly believe how the victors of Leipzig are reduced to soppy idiots at the sight of some simpering female. What the devil does this china doll suppose we are doing here, about to dance a polonaise at an imperial ball?” His cutting tone carried clearly through the yard.
Schneider cringed. “She heard you!”
Indeed, the lady’s head snapped around, and she stared at them, pausing with her hand gracefully extended towards her cavalier who was kneeling in front of her, the muddied water seeping up his white trousers.
“Get me his name. He shall be reprimanded for this lack of discipline,” Hartenberg snapped. “It is a crime how they treat their uniforms, and all because a simpering milk-and-water miss fails to have the common sense to dress appropriately when travelling. Truly, there is nothing I despise more than such a female.” His voice dripped with contempt.
The world was full of women like her. Pretty little porcelain poppets who melted at the first drop of rain, who continually complained, who expected a man’s sole purpose to be dancing attendance upon her, who lisped and cringed, burst into tears and fainted as soon as one touched them with a firmer grip, but who had nothing whatsoever in their daintily curled heads but fashion, fluff, and frippery.
Ah, she had indeed heard him, because her wide, limpid eyes were welling up.
He turned away disgustedly. Schneider, in agitation, pressed his hands together in quiet apology, with a half-bow in her direction, then rushed after his commander. “But sir…”
But Hartenberg had already stridden away and disappeared into the inn.
Chapter Three
Evie was no milk-and-water miss.
Truly, she was not. She could shoot as well as any sharpshooter in the 95th Rifles, jump from a cow barn twenty feet high into a pile of hay without breaking her legs, spit as well as any stable boy, whistle like a street boy, and rattle off a litany of curses that would make any sailor burst into tears with embarrassment.
They ought to have set Evie loose on the French in Corunna, her brother once claimed. It might have spared the British heaps of trouble, including the loss of a soldier or two, if not an entire regiment.
Evie, who’d looked up Corunna on the map and dearly wished she had been there, heartily agreed.
Despite her penchant for unladylike pastimes, she also excelled at all the female graces which were expected of a duke’s sister, such as embroidery, watercolours, and playing the pianoforte. She had a voice as clear and light as a nightingale’s. She spoke four languages fluently, including German. And she could dance the waltz as gracefully as any Austrian.
Not a single person in the entire Englishtoncould have imagined that Lady Evie was sturdy and resilient, with a constitution made of steel.
Therein lay the problem.
She was small and dainty, barely reaching her brother’s shoulders, with a delicate hourglass figure, and a waist so small one could span two hands around it. She had wide, limpid eyes the colour of bluebells in a narrow, elfin face framed with bouncy brown curls that took on a coppery hue when the light shone on them, the bane of her existence.
“Who,” Evie liked to complain, “will ever take me seriously looking like this?” She pulled at a corkscrew curl that bounced back into its original perfect form. All the ladies in thetonenvied her for it, for they spent hours curling their hair into precisely this shape, and here was Evie, naturally born with a head full of this crowning glory, and without ever having to resort to paper curls and curling tongs.
