“If you’ve got anything, I’d drink it,” Lacey replied. He looked exhausted, his face drawn and gray. “The stronger the better.”
Alec pushed open the door of the farmhouse, but it was full. A group of junior officers were clustered around the fire, where a pot steamed. He grimaced; whatever was in the kettle didn’t smell appetizing in the least, not even to a man who hadn’t had a decent meal all day. Combined with the smell of drying wool, the air in the house was thick and sour. Instead Alec picked up an umbrella someone had left near the door and ducked back into the rain. He opened it, and Will stepped under it beside him to share the last of the brandy in his flask.
For a while they just watched the rain. When the brandy was gone, Will rummaged in his pockets and found some tobacco. Alec went into the house and got an ember, and they settled in for a smoke to warm themselves.
“It’s going to be a bloodbath,” Will said at last.
Alec blew out a puff of smoke that evaporated at once in the wet air. “Worse than usual, you think?”
His friend was quiet, then plucked the cigar from his mouth to gesture at the sodden darkness. “Somewhere over that ridge are thousands of Frenchmen who want to kill us all. They must know it’s old Boney’s great chance. If he can wipe out this army, what would stand in his way?”
Alec grunted, conceding the point. “He shan’t destroy the army, I don’t think. Wellington’s too cagey for that. He’ll fall back on Brussels and make another stand, and God help the Prussians if they don’t join him there.”
“They’re on the way to Wavre, if the French can’t get them first.”
“You’re awfully grim,” Alec said mildly. “I hold out hope we might crush them, instead of the other way around.”
Will shook his head. “I have a terrible premonition about this fight, Alec. No—that is not what I mean.” He paused, seemingly struggling for words. “I have not been as—as able an officer as I should have been.”
Alec glanced at him. “Nonsense. What the devil…?”
“I have felt my inadequacies weighing on me of late.” He was drawing hard on his cigar. “As though I’ve been blinded to them all my life and only now see what they cost me.”
“The lament of all married men.”
As hoped, Will smiled, but it quickly faded. “My poor wife. If I should die, who will take care of her? She shouldn’t have to suffer so, and now she’s with child.”
Will had married a Spanish beauty during the Peninsula campaign, but his father had not been pleased. From what Alec recalled of old Mr. Lacey, he wouldn’t be likely to take care of Isabella Lacey and her baby if anything happened to Will. Mrs. Lacey was in Brussels now, no doubt even more anxious about the impending battle than her husband. Alec had met her on a few occasions and thought old Lacey was a fool not to embrace her. He clapped Will on the shoulder. “I will care for her. You may depend on that, although I fully expect you to ride through this battle without a blemish, and have many children to vex you well into your old age, just as you and I have done for our fathers.”
Will’s shoulder twitched. “Thank you. You cannot know how that eases my mind. I have your word? Whatever may happen?”
Surprised, Alec looked away from the driving rain and into his friend’s face. “Do you even need to ask? You know I would.”
“Your word?” Will repeated. His eyes burned and the cigar trembled in his fingers. “Whatever happens?”
“Yes.” Alec wondered at Will’s feverish insistence, but then told himself not to judge too harshly; he didn’t know what went through a man’s mind the night before a battle when he had a wife and children to think of. He didn’t particularly care to think of his own death, but if it happened, his family would go along well enough without him. No one depended on him for home and happiness, and he didn’t depend on anyone for his. “I swear it.”
The tension went out of Will’s body and he leaned against the wall at their back. “I have a letter here…” He drew it from inside his coat. “To my father. Would you send it to him, after my death?”
It was customary to leave a letter for one’s family, to be sent if necessary. Many officers would be up most of the night writing them. Alec stared askance at Will, though, for the certainty of his phrasing. Not “if I should fall” but “after my death.” He took the letter and shoved it into his pocket. “Get some sleep, Lacey. You’re not going to die, not in this fight.”
Will’s smile was ghastly. “Perhaps not. But it would ease my mind…”
“Of course,” Alec muttered. Of course they both might die on the morrow, or a week hence, or in their sleep tonight. It was part of the army. “I regret I have no wife and child to leave to your tender care. Perhaps you can find someone to marry Julia, if I die and miss the chance of teasing her suitors.”
Will closed his eyes, smiled, and said nothing. For a long moment the only sound was the steady patter of the rain on the umbrella over their heads and the soft rush of the small river now flowing through the ditch that used to be a road. In the distance was a constant rumble, not of thunder but of wagons carrying supplies, artillery, and wounded. A man came sloshing through the mud toward them. “Captain Lacey, sir!”
He stiffened. “Yes?”
The man’s eyes were barely visible in
