After the interview, the visitors left. Sam Clemens, editor of the Teatime Tattler, sank back into his chair with a sigh of relief, and dug for a handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his brow.

“Well, that was intense,” said one of his reporter. “What are you going to do, Sam?”

“Publish the interview, obviously,” Sam said. “What else?”

“But the public wants blood, Sam,” said the journalist. “These rumors that are flying around the town are newspaper gold. People want to know all the prurient details. And it is not as if we would be lying. There must be some substance to them. No smoke without fire, and all that.”

Sam didn’t act on his spurt of irritation. Marcus was wrong, but he was also young. Time enough to get angry with him if he proved to be unteachable.

He held up a finger. “Point one,” he said. “A determined gossip only needs to embroider a few facts to make the billowing smoke look like a whole bonfire. If you are going to be a serious writer, my lad, don’t resort to cliches.”

A second finger joined the first. “Point two. I’ve looked into the sources of the scandal, the people who started circulating the stories. The gossip all goes back to people who have something to gain. The Brethertons. They thought they had the colonel locked up as a groom for their girl. The marriage would have saved them, and then his wife came back from the dead, and now they face bankruptcy. They believe they’ll get a cash settlement from Redepenning if they make enough fuss. They’re idiots. He and his family will crush them.”

“But they’re not the only ones,” Marcus protested.

He would have said more, but Sam didn’t wait. “True. Lady Carrington, who has been trying to hurt the Redepennings since the younger sons refused to play her wicked games and gave her the cut direct. That was before your time, Marcus, a decade ago. She lies as easily as she breathes, that woman, and I wouldn’t take her word for it if she said the sky was blue. In fact, lad, that’s a good principal for a reporter. Don’t take anyone’s word for anything. Check your facts. As for that cur Major Weston, I have it on good authority that he is jealous of the colonel, and is motivated by spite.”

“What about the Frenchie, Sam?” Marcus asked, sounding interested rather than combatative.

“Him, I don’t know. Perhaps he is just being used by Lady Carrington, but from what people overheard at the ball, he appears to think he is revenging his brother. That doesn’t mean, though, that there’s truth to the rumours she worked with the man spying for the French. Indeed, logically, if her actions led to the brother’s death, it seems unlikely that she was working with the man or was his lover.”

He could do with a drink. He poured them both a brandy, and sat down again. “As for the lady’s children, the eldest is obviously Colonel Redepenning’s. The other two, he says, are war orphans that she adopted. Since she came here with a whole pack of war widows and their children, it is not unlikely.”

Where had he got to? Ah yes. “Third point, the story Redepenning tells is even more compelling. Two people, both warriors, both the best of their kind, praised by Wellington. They meet in the midst of war, and fall in love. Then tragedy happens. Her band of Spanish freedom fighters is ambushed and slaughtered, and he believes her to be dead. The country is in confusion, with the tides of war ebbing and flowing, land changing hands from the French to the allies and back again hour by hour.”

Marcus was nodding, hanging on every word. Good. He had the right instincts. He was hearing the drama, the pathos. Sam continued. “The lady escapes the ambush because she is giving birth. When the baby is old enough to leave, she sets out to seek her husband, and is captured by the French. Eventually she manages to escape, but she is injured, ill. By the time she is well enough to resume the search, our armies have chased the French into France. The British Army has other priorities than helping one couple to reunite. And so our heroine works and waits, saving money for an epic journey, across oceans, seeking the man she loves. She must know what has become of him.”

He downed the rest of his brandy and stood. “Write it, Marcus. You were here. You heard the interview. Write the story and bring it to me. You have two hours. End with the reunion. Husband and wife, joyfully together after all the blood, all the violence, all the tears. Make the readers feel it. Have them cheering the Redepennings on. Wipe the floor with those dirty rags who forget that people love a happy ending.”

There was another point he wanted to make. Oh yes. “Before you start, fourth point. The Redepennings are one of the most powerful families in this land. They are allied with the Haverfords, who are even more powerful. In fact, Brigadier General Redepenning, the colonel’s father, is friends with the Deerhavens and the Dellboroughs, too. No newspaper that wants to survive can afford to annoy three dukes, Marcus, and don’t you forget it.”

An Unpitied Sacrifice

“When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.” Edmund Burke

Brought together by war, Valeria Izquierdos and Harry Redepenning had only a few short months as a couple before the war parted them again.

That war is long over when she brings a group of war brides and children to England. Her friends seek their soldier husbands. Valeria wants to find Harry or, if Harry’s long silence means he is dead, his father. Her eldest child deserves to know his English family.

Harry has never forgotten, or ceased to mourn, the warrior wife he married in the midst of war, and lost to a French ambush years ago. His courtship of a suitable wife is a practical matter, not involving the heart that has been numb since Valeria’s death.

The Redepenning family greet Valeria with suspicion, but when Harry joyously confirms her identity, they welcome her and her children with open arms—not just Kiko, whose Redepenning eyes mark him as Harry’s son, but also the daughter she adopted and the younger son who origins she has disclosed only to Harry.

But as Valeria, Harry, and the children begin living as a family, another, private, war looms before them. The lady who had been smugly awaiting Harry’s proposal is less than pleased with the couple’s reunion. She and her parents set out to destroy Valeria’s reputation, and find willing accomplices.

An old foe of the Redepennings has combined forces with a man who blames Valeria for his brother’s death, and who wants Valeria’s youngest child. A rival of Harry’s from the army would be glad to hurt Harry however he can. These enemies will stop at nothing to destroy not only Harry and Valeria, but also their family.

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