An Infamous Army by Georgette Heyer Read Free Book Online

the Coldstream, and the 3rd Scots; all 2nd battalions. The 52nd is here, a part of the 95th - but you must know the regiments as well as I do! There's no English cavalry at all, only that of the German Legion."
    The Colonel nodded. "They'll come."
    "Under Combermere?"
    "Oh, surely! We can't do without old Stapleton Cotton's long face among us. But tell me! who are all these schoolboys on the staff, and where did they spring from? Scarcely a name one knows on the Quartermaster-General's staff, or the Adjutant-General's either, for that matter!"
    "I thought myself there were a number of remarkably inexperienced young gentlemen calling themselves Deputy-Assistants - but when the Duke takes a lad of fifteen into his family one is left to suppose he likes a staff just out of the nursery. By the by, I suppose you know you have arrived in time to assist at festivities at the Hotel de Ville tonight? There's to be a fete in honour of the King and Queen of the Netherlands. Does the Duke go?"
    "Oh yes, we always go to fetes!" replied the Colonel. "What is it to be? Dancing, supper - the usual thing? That reminds me: I must have some new boots. Is there anyone in the town who can be trusted to make me a pair of hessians?"
    This question led to a discussion of the shops in Brussels, and the more pressing needs of an officer on the Duke of Wellington's staff. These seemed to consist mostly of articles of wearing apparel suitable for galas, and Lady Worth was left presently to reflect on the incomprehensibility of the male sex, which, upon the eve of war, was apparently concerned solely with the price of silver lace, and the cut of a hessian boot.
    The Colonel had declared his dress clothes to be worn to rags, but when he presented himself in readiness to set forth to the Hotel de Ville that evening his sister-in-law had no fault to find with his appearance beyond regretting, with a sigh, that his present occupation made the wearing of his hussar uniform ineligible. Nothing could have been better than the set of his coat across his shoulders, nothing more resplendent than his fringed sash, nothing more effulgent than his hessians with their swinging tassels. The Colonel was blessed with a good leg, and had nothing to fear from sheathing it in a skin-tight net pantaloon. His curling brown locks had been brushed into a state of pleasing disorder, known as the style au coup de vent; his whiskers were neatly trimmed; he carried his cocked hat under one arm; and altogether presented to his sister-in-law's critical gaze a very handsome picture.
    That he was quite unaware of it naturally did not detract from his charm. Judith, observing him with a little complacency, decided that if Miss Devenish failed to succumb to the twinkle in the Colonel's open grey eyes, or to the attraction of his easy, frank manners, she must be hard indeed to please.
    Miss Devenish would be present this evening, Judith having been at considerable pains to procure invitation tickets for her and for Mrs Fisher.
    The Earl of Worth's small party arrived at the Hotel de Ville shortly after eight o'clock, to find a long line of carriages setting down their burdens one after another, and the interior of the building already teeming with guests. The ante-rooms were crowded, and (said Colonel Audley) as hot as any in Vienna; and her ladyship, having had her train of lilac crape twice trodden on, was very glad to pass into the ballroom. Here matters were a little better, the room being of huge proportions. Down one side of it were tall windows, with statues on pedestals set in each, while on the opposite side were corresponding embrasures, each one curtained, and emblazoned with the letter W in a scroll.
    A great many of the guests were of Belgian or of Dutch nationality, but Lady Worth soon discovered English acquaintances among them, and was presently busy presenting Colonel Audley to those who had not yet met him, or recalling him to the remembrances of those who had. She did