Chapter 15

Sipping tea a week later in her cousin Rebecca's house, Jessica felt loved and blessed by her good fortune. She and Daniel had been invited to stay at Rebecca's home in London while her house was being repaired. Brandon was sitting close beside her. They would be married in two weeks.

Aunt Harriett had been beside herself with joy at the news. She was sitting with them in Rebecca's parlor to hear what Commodore Trevor had to say about her brother's act of unknown heroism that had earned him such a high honor.

Phileas and Rebecca were on the other side of the room. She was sitting on the sofa, and he was standing behind her, his hand laying on her shoulder, lightly caressing it.

Jessica smiled into her tea. She did not know what had changed their relationship so drastically, but Aunt Harriett was all smiles on that development. It had been a long time in coming.

Jessica had come back from the camp finding her two relatives tight in each other's arms asleep. Quietly, she had bound Phileas's wounds and draped her cousins in one of the two blankets she had found. At daylight, a search party from the keep had found the Prussian bodies, and them, still asleep by the tree.

Rebecca had taken a severe chill from her swim, but had recovered within a week. Phileas's wounds had not been severe, but he had taken just as long to get over the blood loss and chill. By the time everyone had fully recovered and Sir Jonathan Chatsworth had given them leave to come home, Jessica's cousins had become so obviously, deeply in love, that the Brandon's father had raised his hands in surrender, accepting that he had been fighting a losing battle all along.

Commodore Trevor was holding a brittle folder from his satchel, reading to Jessica and the assembled guests her father's report of a secret mission into France from fifty years in the past. "I rode from the castle as fast as my horse could carry me," Phillip had written.

Phillip had not expected to run into so many concentrations of French troops on his way to Brussels. He had had to stop and circle several times, losing precious time. After crossing a stream and dodging yet another group of French soldiers, he was challenged in German by a man on horseback in a Prussian uniform. His pistol aimed at Phillip's heart.

"Identify yourself!"

Phillip went stock-still. This man was with one of the European regiments that were fighting with Lord Wellington. "Lieutenant Phillip Fogg of the Royal British Navy," he said. "I have information for the general. Can you take me to him?"

The Calvary man was not sure about Phillip's claims as he was coming from across enemy lines, but his accent branded him English. The soldier led Phillip to a house in a clearing several miles away. There were soldiers going back and forth purposely everywhere.

The Prussian turned Phillip over to an English staff officer, who took him into the presence of Lord Wellington himself. Phillip stood there exhausted. He asked for privacy. The general sent away all but two staff officers.

"Now what is so important you find it necessary to interrupt the planning of the last battle of this war?" Lord Wellington ordered sharply.

Phillip's eyes widened at that remark, and then folded at the knees as his strength gave way. A staff officer caught him before he hit the floor.

Phillip was settled into a chair; a brandy was pushed into his hand and up to his lips. It burned its way down, bringing Phillip back to the present.

One of the officers took the dispatch satchel off his shoulder. The man began to go through it. Phillip came back to himself as the officer handed Wellington one of the envelopes.

"My Lord, the information in that satchel is tainted," Phillip said. "I could not recommend you accept anything that is in it as reliable."

Lord Wellington looked up from the dispatches in his hand to the man before him.

"How?"

Phillip slowly went through his mission and how Evans had been forced to bring information to the broken French Count. He told the general of his cousin's kidnapping done to ensure his compliance. After explaining how he and his relatives had rescued Sarah and the count's man's revelation, Phillip stopped and asked if anyone had come to the general's encampment beside himself unannounced.

"There have been several, including a few French informants," a staff officer said.

"Do you know what this assassin looks like?"

"No," Phillip confessed. "I will assume his is French, as I saw none other at the count's castle. I cannot say if he works with or against Bonaparte or if Count Gregory has designs of his own. All I know is that your life was threatened because of my actions."

The General said dispassionately, "My life is often threatened."

He called to the officer nearest Phillip. "Sutherland, find the lieutenant a place to rest, and show him around. Let him meet with everyone."

After Phillip had been led out of the room, the general turned to the staff officer remaining with him. "What do you think of this?"

Thompson considered his answer. "It's fantastic, but we received word just a day ago that your last set of orders from London had been carried off by its courier. I have orders to arrest David Evans if he shows up here. I have seen Evans before when he brought us dispatches. He seemed a good man. He was a veteran of campaigns in Spain."

"I remember him," Lord Wellington said sadly. "And this crippled French Count?"

"Who knows," Thompson said bewildered. "That part sounded like the imaginings of a fevered mind. But I see nothing but strong concern in Fogg. Let him stay and keep watch. If he finds this assassin, then good. If he does not, no harm done."

After a few fitful hours' rest, Phillip ate a quick camp meal and started roaming the camp with Sutherland at his side. He watched the French informants warily. So did most everyone else in camp. Many French citizens hated Bonaparte, but it was difficult to tell one from the other.

Phillip stationed himself close to the general's office for the rest of the day. He watched as officers came and went with orders. Regiments were sent off in different directions to make ready. In the distance, cannon fire was heard, and guns. The battle had started.

Staff officers came and went franticly. Some came back with wounds. Some came back on different horses than the ones they left on. Sutherland was called away from Phillip's side as the day progressed. Fatigue wore Phillip down

He ate to keep up his strength, but would not leave the general's door.

Near dark, a staff officer came in fast on horseback, falling off his mount as he stopped. One leg was shot so badly Phillip wasn't sure if it was still attached. He was called over by an orderly to help hold the man while a doctor tended him. The injured officer grabbed Phillip's arm and pushed a note into his hand. "Take this to Wellington!" He gasped through his pain-clinched teeth.

Phillip took the note from the officer and stood just in time to see one of the French informants opening the door to the house.

The Frenchman looked across the yard toward him. The man's eyes blazed with fury that made Phillip shiver to his bones. He had seen that kind of hate on only one face in all his life.

Phillip sprinted to the door. The Frenchman shut and locked it before Phillip could get to him. He backed up and ran to the side of the house, crashing through the window of the General's office. Phillip came up stinging from glass cuts.

Lord Wellington came out of his desk chair and fell to the floor. Two staff officers were in the room with him. They had all backed away from Phillip, looking at him with undisguised shock.

None of them were watching the door.

The Frenchman, the count's assassin, reached the doorway and was pulling something out of his coat. Phillip grabbed a pistol from the desktop and shot into the man's body in one fluid motion. His blast, at such close quarters, knocked the man back out the doorway and into the foyer.

Phillip and the three men in the office went out to the body as the report from his borrowed pistol died away. The assassin had another pistol in his belt, still wrapped in his fingers. He was flat on his back staring up at those around him unable to move.

A staff officer kicked his hand off the pistol and took it away.

The Frenchman stared up in helpless fury, hatred coming out of every pour in his body that made even these battle veterans take a step back.

Phillip was the focus of that anger. "You did this." he said, coughing up blood. "This will not go unpunished. I will hunt you down to the ends of the earth." The Frenchman's eyes lost their focus and rolled upward.

"A rather hollow threat from a dying man," the general said of it.

Lord Wellington put his hand on Phillip's shoulder. "You did well, Lieutenant Fogg. I am in your debt."

Phillip did not hear the general. He was still looking down at the would be assassin. It was not the man himself that had spoken that last threat against him. The monster who had sent him spoke. No one on earth had that look of century's old hatred but Count Gregory. He knew it like he knew the sun would set. He knelt down and took the man's head in his hand. He lifted it, checking, and then found what he was looking for. It was a smallish screw in the back of the head.

As Phillip stood, he remembered the rider outside. He pulled the scrap of paper from his coat and gave it to one of the staff officers standing with him. "This came just as I saw the assassin come into the house," Phillip reported.

The officer uncrumpled the message and ran back into the general's office. A few moments later, he came out again yelling for a horseman. There were none available.

Phillip turned to him, asking what the trouble was.

"The lines in the east are broken. We have to get this message to the 42nd as fast as we can to fill in the gap!"

"If you have a horse, I can take it," Phillip said. He was bone tired, but needed action to clear his mind of the horror of what had just happened.

"Good man!" The officer praised.

Phillip was shown a map and the layout of the troops. A large brown hunter was found and brought to him. Phillip pulled himself into the saddle and rode off as fast as he could.

Commodore Trevor lowered the papers he read from and said, "Your father made it to the regiment with the orders. The gap was filled, but his horse was shot out from under him. With no way to get back, he took up arms and fought with the 42nd Highlanders."

"It was a ghastly bloody battle," Trevor whispered. "So many were killed. Your father was brought back to Vienna with terrible injuries. Ladies in the town, society ladies, officer's wives and townspeople met the wounded as they returned, treated them in the streets and took them into their homes. It took Phillip two weeks to be declared recovered enough to be return to England."

Trevor put the papers down. "When our ship returned, Boniface was told of Phillip's condition and rushed to his side. He sat with your father for weeks, and returned to the ship in a rage, telling us Phillip had abandoned his commission."

He looked at the Order of the Garter on the table. "Lord Wellington himself, along with Earl Weatherby of the Foreign Office, pushed through the recommendation. This decoration was presented in the hospital as your father fought for life from the King's own hand. This is usually presented in a special ceremony in November, but they were not sure if Phillip would live that long. There is no provision for offering the award after death."

Trevor turned to look at Jessica and take her hand. "Your father was a very brave man and a humble one to hold such an honor in secret all these years. It must have been a fear that his presence in England would bring the count's wrath down on his family that sent Phillip to the sea."

Phileas did not offer what he knew about a disfigured French count by the name of Gregory. To protect his family, Phillip had never returned to England and spent over a decade wandering the seas before marrying Jessica's mother. And then we, Rebecca and I, fought against him again. He knew our family name. This is why.

"I am very proud to have known your father and thrilled to have been able to find this information for you, my dear," the Commodore said in summation. He gave Jessica the folder with the report.

Jessica took it with reverence, tears spilling down her face. "Thank you, sir," she said with her heart in her eyes. "Thank you very much."

The End