The Soldier's Dark Secret

‘One can only hope that marriage has moderated their billing and cooing. I was positively embarrassed, the last time we met.’

‘My love.’ Sir Charles got up from his seat and kissed the nape of his wife’s neck. ‘Nurse has taken Robert and Donal and the baby out for a picnic. I was rather hoping that we could indulge in some billing and cooing ourselves.’

‘Charles!’ Lady Eleanor exclaimed, looking shocked.

He pulled her to her feet and kissed her.

‘Oh, Charles,’ Lady Eleanor said in a very different voice as she allowed him to take her hand and lead her out of the breakfast room.

* * * * *

Historical Note

The first thing to say is there’s a fair bit of history in this book. Thank you so much to the other Harlequin Historical authors who shared research recommendations and helped me out with references to what we now refer to as post-traumatic stress disorder. In particular, thanks to Louise Allen for sharing her amazing research catalogue and for the insights from Dr Martin Howard’s book, Wellington’s Doctors.

Four books in particular were of immense help in the gestation of this story—and all four are now looking as dog-eared and exhausted as I feel, having written it!

Christopher Hibbert’s The French Revolution is an excellent all-encompassing account of the Revolution from its early days right through the Terror until Napoleon stepped in. It gives a real sense of what it must have been like in the last days of the Terror, when Celeste’s mother was hiding in Paris and, as Madame Rosser attests, arrests became quite indiscriminate. The case she mentions of a woman guillotined for grieving too openly for her husband is a true one.

Richard Holmes’s Redcoat tells the story of the British army from an ordinary soldier’s point of view. It’s stuffed full of fantastic anecdotes, including stories about interminable mess dinners and endless toasts, which mirror the dinner Jack and Celeste attend. Finlay, of whom we shall see much more in the next book in this miniseries, came to life as a direct result of my reading in Redcoat that almost no enlisted men made it up through the ranks of Wellington’s army. Who could resist a man who beats the odds—and the ingrained snobbery too?

If you only read one book about Waterloo I’d highly recommend choosing Nick Foulkes’s Dancing into Battle. This is not a blow-by-blow account of the battle itself, but of the men who fought it, their wives and children, and the gossipmongers who watched from the sidelines. It’s irreverent, funny and, unlike many historical tomes, a very easy read.

Lady Richmond’s famous ball, which is mentioned in this book, gets the full treatment here, as does the Duke of Wellington’s relationship with the fatally attractive though apparently quite empty-headed Lady Wedderburn Webster, which so enthrals my Lady Eleanor.

The story of the French spy who passed himself off as one of Lord Uxbridge’s men also originates from here.

And then there’s my favourite example of the British stiff upper lip: when Lord Uxbridge was wounded, he said to Wellington, ‘By God, sir, I’ve lost my leg.’

‘By God, sir, so you have,’ the Duke replied.

George Scovell, an engraver’s apprentice, was Wellington’s real code-breaker, and if you want to know more about him try Mark Urban’s book The Man Who Broke Napoleon’s Codes. As to Jack’s dark secret—though the setting and timing, near Burgos in 1813, is historically accurate, the event itself is an invention wholly of my own. In fact it owes rather more to the Vietnam War than the Peninsular one, when the Vietcong used innocent villagers as shields, as may or may not have happened, in Jack’s story.

A lot of reading and research, but luckily I have another book to write on the same subject. Finlay’s story is next. Though how that will turn out at this moment in time I have absolutely no idea!

Keep reading for an excerpt from A DEBT PAID IN MARRIAGE by Georgie Lee.

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Chapter One

London—spring 1817