As Ann had matured, she’d realized how little of wartime reality Melisande had conveyed in her letters. Unless Uncle Horace had been very protective, Aunt had seen death and horror, injustice and tragedy. The scent of a battlefield had to have been a nightmare.
And yet, as the leaves scraped across the sunny flagstones, and Orion Goddard refilled Ann’s champagne glass, she had reason to envy Melisande her years with the army. The colonel had listened to Ann’s prattling regarding Hannah’s education. He’d held Ann’s chair for her.
He’d kissed her, and when she’d kissed him back, he’d accepted her overtures with a sweet, easy confidence that put her in mind of his French antecedents and his champagne. Heady and light, delicious and fine.
“How soon will you know if Benny has a cook’s vocation?” the colonel asked, dabbing cheese on an apple tart and setting it on Ann’s plate.
“You are eating only the one?” she asked.
“I suspect Miss Julia and Miss Diana will see to the leftovers.”
“They can afford to order their own baskets from Gunter’s, but they prefer my cooking most of the time. On occasion, my experiments are fit only for the slop pail.”
“I cannot believe that.” The colonel swiped a finger through the drizzle of apple filling crossing his plate. “Perhaps when you were less experienced, you had the rare unexpected result, but by now, you know the terrain blindfolded.”
Ann knew sauces, she was making good inroads on desserts and side dishes, but Jules jealously guarded his dominion over the roasts and entrées. Ann did not want to spend this impromptu picnic boring the colonel with a recitation of kitchen skirmishes.
He eyed his hat, as if he were thinking of making an escape.
“Tell me about your eye patch, Colonel Goddard. I suspect you don’t wear it merely to appear dashing.” Ann took a bite of tart to cover her mortification. She should never have pried like that, never have been so blunt. Fine white lines radiated from the colonel’s eye, scars so delicate they would be invisible by candlelight.
“Nobody asks,” he said, considering his wine, “but everybody stares. The tale is simple: Early in Napoleon’s military career, while he was tossing the Austrians out of Italy, his artillerymen had a few lucky shots, managing to land a mortar directly upon the wagon holding his opponent’s powder magazine. In addition to creating one hell of an explosion, he depleted the other side’s store of ammunition and raised morale on the French side. This became something of a sport among French artillerymen thereafter, to blow up powder magazines.”
“A deadly sport.”
“Warhorses become inured to much, and the mules favored by the artillerymen are even more stoic, but that much noise and mayhem… The disruption is as bad as the actual injury and destruction. I happened to witness a lucky French volley at too-close range. I raised my arm to shield my face, but was only half successful. For days, I had little hearing. For weeks, I was blindfolded.”
“Your hearing came back?”
“For the most part.”
Ann waited, hoping he’d tell her the rest of it, because clearly the tale was unfinished. She had missed the empty pleasures of a young woman of means—a London Season, flirtations, pretty dresses—and those had been easy to pass up.
But toiling away in a hot, busy kitchen night after night, Ann also missed any hope of conversations like this, personal and genuine, with a man of substance. She in fact had no real female friends either, outside of Miss Julia and Miss Diana, and suspected her weekly calls on Melisande were as much about disseminating menus and recipes as they were about maintaining a family tie.
“When a storm approaches, I have headaches on this side,” the colonel said, tapping his left temple. “I am grateful to see and hear as well as I do, because for far too long…. The wounds were slow to heal, and the surgeons kept me in the dark. The blast had knocked me off my feet, and I was nursing broken ribs and a very sore hip as well.”
Ann did not like to think of this hale, fit man condemned to a cot in some stinking infirmary tent. “How did you remain sane?”
“The army teaches a man patience, perhaps too much patience. After following all manner of daft orders for a few years, if a soldier is told to remain abed and wear a blindfold, he remains abed and wears the blindfold. I thought about my family’s process for making champagne, the grapes we use, the method of aging in the bottle. The medical officer was French-born, oddly enough, and he promised me even the damaged eye would have some sight if I behaved, and he was right.”
Ann suspected Orion Goddard had not told this tale to anybody, not even his sister. “For you, it would have been worse to lie obediently on that cot in the dark than to take on the French army with nothing but your sword.”
The colonel poured her more wine. “I am not a hero, Miss Pearson. I was simply one of many soldiers and luckier than most. The incident earned me a promotion I have never felt I deserved and might have also figured in the knighthood that even my commanding officer begrudges me.”
The second glass of champagne was as good as the first and held up easily to the food it accompanied. Some champagnes were like afternoon dresses—pretty enough, but not adequate for evening occasions. The colonel’s vintage was equal to any hour, a light midday repast or full banquet honors.
Like the man himself.
“You begrudge yourself that knighthood,” Ann said.
The colonel sat back and crossed an ankle over the opposite knee, a relaxed, informal pose that showed off his physique to excellent advantage. He would age well and soundly, for all his early years had been spent in battle.
“I don’t understand why my name was included on the honors list at all,” he said. “I am in disgrace with my regiment, though I have never been able to ascertain exactly why. The trouble started before the Hundred Days, when we all thought the last shot had been fired, and Bonaparte was buttoned up on Elba.”
Bonaparte had become unbuttoned, as it were, escaping from his island after less than a year of exile, mustering the French army to his cause, and re-entering Paris in a matter of weeks. That entire unexpected coda to years of war had lasted little more than three months and culminated in the great slaughter at Waterloo.
The great victory, rather. “Did you serve during the Hundred Days?”
“I was considered unfit for duty, and as depleted as Wellington’s forces were after nearly a year of peace, I took that to mean I was undesirable rather than unfit. Just when I think the rumors about me are beginning to subside, they start up again.”
Ann took the butter biscuit from his plate and held it out to him. “Gunter’s butter biscuits are not to be missed. I would give much for the recipe. I can come close, but I cannot re-create them exactly.”
He broke the biscuit in half and took a bite. “I generally avoid sweets.”
“Why?”
“I am less apt to miss them, and if I expect my boys to learn some self-restraint, then I must practice limiting my pleasures, too, mustn’t I?”
He passed Ann half of his biscuit, and she was not about to refuse such a treat. “Tell me of the rumors, Colonel. We hear everything at the Coventry, sooner or later. The military contingent doesn’t frequent our tables in great numbers, but we get enough retired officers among our customers to hear what’s making the rounds at Horse Guards.”