The Honorable Officer by Philippa Lodge

them. She heard it clatter shut and the lock click. Only as she recovered from her surprise and wondered if she should alert her aunt that Amandine had locked herself in with Bernard did she realize they were in the library. And she had wanted a book.
    Amandine had been right: Hélène didn’t dare tell anyone. Of course at the time, everyone assumed the two of them would be married soon, uniting the company in the new generation. It was only after the Baron de la Brosse approached them that the Ferands realized they could aim higher to find a husband for Amandine. A second son of a rich baron, already established in the army, would get their daughter into court circles.
    Thecolonel had been more subtle than Bernard when he came to see his betrothed in the weeks leading up to their wedding. Hélène had interrupted their whispered conversations but had never seen them doing anything inappropriate.
    ****
    Colonel de Cantière dined with them in his tent and invited his friend,Colonel Hardi, who talked genially about his family and asked her about hers. When Ondine finished, Hélène let her fetch her picture book from their tent. Instead of coming back to Hélène, the girl went to de Cantière and stood next to his chair, staring up at him with huge blue eyes until he noticed her. He stared back at her with his matching blue eyes and then asked if he could read to her. Hélène lifted her lorgnette to her eye to watch the exchange and felt a lump in her throat as Ondine settled on his lap and leaned against him, looking up at him with a frown.
    As soon as he finished, Ondine took the book and scrambled down from his lap to bring the book to Hélène and hide against her.
    “Ondine, you need to say, ‘Merci, Papa,’ ” said Hélène softly.
    The little girl muttered something.
    “It was my pleasure, Ondine,” said de Cantière, smiling fondly at the girl, who dug her face deeper into Hélène’s skirts.
    Colonel Hardi watched them with a sad smile. Finally, he said, “All of mine are too old to have books read to them, de Cantière. Makes me want to talk my wife into having more, seeing a sweet little girl like that.”
    Hélène dared to turn her glass toward the colonel and saw him staring at Ondine. He looked up at her and smiled slightly. “I know she is in good hands when I am away.”
    Hélène blushed.
    ****
    Jean-Louis carried Ondine back to the tent next to his again, reveling in the weight of the warm little girl in his arms. She didn’t throw her arms around his neck like she did with Mademoiselle Hélène, but he hoped she would with a little time.
    He shook his head after he kissed the little girl on the top of the head and said goodnight. There was no time. He would send them back to Paris as soon as he could get away for a few days to accompany them part of the way.
    Jean-Louis would come back to Grey and finish the cleanup after the battle before moving on to the next one. No matter how much he resented that the Grand Condé, as he was called, had led enemy Spanish troops for years, he was a prince and a general, appointed by his cousin the king. If Jean-Louis ever wanted to be a general himself, which he did, he would need to take orders and not be demoted for insubordination.
    As he tried to fall asleep after a long evening of studying maps on the best route for Mademoiselle Hélène and Ondine to travel home, he thought of Mademoiselle Hélène’s lovely face and how it lit up when she laughed. He shifted uncomfortably on his pallet of blankets, all the bed he had left, since Mademoiselle Hélène was sleeping on his cot.
    Ondine, with Mademoiselle Hélène. It was only incidental that Hélène was sleeping on his bed.
    He thought of Hélène stretched out on his small cot and wished he were in her arms instead of his tiny daughter. He cursed himself; he was never marrying again, never becoming more than vaguely fond of any woman, and certainly not marrying someone like Hélène, who not only