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Served whoever suited the work.

Her stomach tightened. That was unfair. Rodrick had taught her himself that what a man claimed to believe mattered less than what he did when belief became expensive. James followed him. Nikolaj trusted him. He had risked himself for Charlotte, for Louise, for men he pretended meant nothing.

She knew him.

Didn't she?

Bootsteps sounded in the corridor. Louise straightened as Rodrick entered. Now he would close the door, cross the room, lie down beside her and say that Uxbridge had asked for the impossible. He would mock the English army. Call Napoleon some irreverent name. Then he would tell her there was no reason to look at him as though the world had split between them.

Perhaps he would pull her back beneath the covers and, for five minutes, there would be no battle outside, no defeated army retreating toward France, no English officer downstairs asking Rodrick to murder her father.

But Rodrick did not come to the bed.

Louise watched him cross to the chair. Then he picked up his waistcoat, checked a pocket, set it aside, and reached for his overcoat. A small muscle worked once along his jaw. His movements were too exact. Rodrick was rarely nervous with his body. Even when surrounded by armed men, he moved with an economy that made everyone else look wasteful.

Her pulse stumbled, and her hands began to tremble.

She folded them together in her lap. "Is there something wrong?"

Rodrick stopped and looked at her.

Louise immediately wished she hadn't asked. His face gave her nothing, and the absence of expression made the shaking spread from her hands into her forearms. She pressed her elbows against her sides, trying to contain it.

Rodrick set the overcoat down and came to her. Then he stopped before her knees and crouched until their faces were level.

"I need to leave for a few hours. You will stay here."

The trembling reached her shoulders.

She would not cry.

Please, let her not cry.

Louise fixed her gaze on the knot of his neckcloth. She could manage that. White linen. One fold slightly crooked near his throat. A fact. Something that did not require her to look into his eyes and wonder whether he was about to ride after Napoleon with a pistol beneath his coat.

"Where are you going?"

Louise lifted her eyes. His face was close enough that she could see the darker line of exhaustion beneath them, the small scar near his temple, the stubble beginning along his jaw. Familiar things.

His hand closed around hers. "I need you to trust me, Louise. Do you trust me?"

Her breath stopped. Louise looked down at their joined hands. His thumb rested over her knuckles, warm and steady while her fingers trembled beneath it.

She nodded.

Rodrick raised her hand and pressed his lips against her knuckles, then stood.

Her hand remained suspended between them for an instant after his was gone, fingers still curved around the shape of his grip. She lowered it slowly into her lap.

Rodrick took his overcoat and then left.

***

Panting, Louise hurried through the corridor. What would she do? What would she do? What could she do?

A valet was coming out of a room three doors down, his arms full of a bundled coat, a pair of boots balanced on top. He turned toward the back stairs and disappeared. Charlotte's husband's room.

The wardrobe was ajar. She crossed to it. Uniforms hung in a narrow row. She pushed aside the white jacket, the gold epaulets scratching her palms. Her hand stilled on a dark blue dolman with hard brass buttons. A color that didn't declare which army it served.