by Diane Gaston
* * *
Rhys held her close while her body shook with sobs. ‘Helene. Helene.’
He’d not entirely believed this was Helene in his arms. What had happened to her? She was covered in blood.
He looked down on her. ‘Are you injured?’
She shook her head. ‘Just. Tired.’
He wanted to ask why she was covered in blood, why was she not safely in Brussels, but he’d wait. She was in no condition to explain anything now.
He lifted her in his arms and carried her inside.
Grant immediately stood. ‘What?’
‘It’s Helene.’ Rhys called to the batmen, ‘Bring her something to drink.’
Rossiter brought some water. Smith laid a blanket on the floor for her. Rhys lowered her to it. She sat and drank a whole tin cup of water.
She looked up at Rhys. ‘S-sorry, Rhys. T-tried to leave. C-couldn’t find my horse. The—the surgeon needed help...’
‘Surgeon?’ The blood now made sense.
Even her boots were stained with blood. He pulled them off her feet. Her stockings were red, too. Smith brought over a basin and rag. Rhys rinsed off her face and arms and hands. She let him minister to her as if she were a child’s doll. She needed clean clothes to wear. Grant brought a clean shirt. That would have to do. The other men gave them privacy as Rhys peeled off her bloody clothes and dressed her in the clean shirt, which reached her knees. He handed the bloody clothes to Smith.
‘I’ll clean them,’ Smith said.
Helene, no longer racked with weeping, lay down on the blanket. ‘Just want to sleep now,’ she murmured, but she reached for Rhys’s hand. ‘You are alive. You all are alive.’ She closed her eyes.
Rhys placed his cloak, all folded up and now dry, under her head as a pillow. The rain seemed so long ago. He covered her with another blanket. She fell asleep instantly.
‘Does she know about her brother?’ Grant asked.
‘I doubt it.’ Rhys looked down at her. ‘I’ll have to tell her tomorrow.’
* * *
The next morning Helene woke to the scent of ham frying in a pan and tea steeping. For a moment she thought she was back at Yarford House and that her maid had brought breakfast to her room. Then her aching muscles felt the cold hard ground beneath her. She sat up.
It took another moment to realise she was in the farm building. She brushed a hand through her hair, but her fingers caught in its tangles and the memory of the day before came rushing back.
She gasped and buried her head in her hands.
Suddenly someone was next to her. She looked up.
Rhys.
He lowered himself to the floor and stroked her face. ‘You are awake. We have breakfast for you.’
She reached for an embrace. ‘Rhys,’ she murmured. ‘You did not die. So many others...’
He held her. ‘We are all alive and unhurt. Grant and Rossiter and Smith. We are all here.’
‘Morning, miss!’ Rossiter called.
The three men came into her view, all smiling.
‘Good morning, Lady Helene,’ Grant said.
She stood and hugged each of them. ‘I am so glad to see you. So glad to see you.’
While tending the wounded, hearing their screams, holding hands of the dying, she’d not allowed herself to think of Rhys or these other dear men, but, now, seeing them, touching them, she knew the fear had been there all along. The fear of death.
‘Are you ready for some breakfast, miss?’ Smith grinned at her.
She returned his smile. ‘I am famished!’
‘Stay right as you are.’ Smith gestured for her to sit. ‘Rossiter and I will bring it to you.’
Rhys and Grant sat with her as the batmen readied their plates and brought tea.
She gazed at the tin cup before she took a sip, remembering it from before the battle, as if it were some relic from a distant time. She also remembered she’d broken her promise to Rhys.
She lifted her gaze to him. ‘I tried to keep my promise to you. I tried to leave, but my horse disappeared—’
He lifted a hand. ‘You told us last night.’
‘Did I?’ She blinked. ‘I don’t remember. I don’t remember much after walking away from the...’ She did not know what to call it. The place of death and dying?
‘You were exhausted,’ Rhys said.
‘Asleep before your head hit the pillow,’ Grant added, taking the plate Rossiter handed to him and placing it in front of her. ‘How the devil did you get roped into helping with the wounded?’
She shrugged and took another sip of tea. ‘The surgeon asked me. The wounded kept coming so I stayed.’
She caught Rhys’s eye, seeing sympathy and pain there. She did not want them to feel sorry for her, though.
She straightened. ‘I was glad to stay. There were others helping, but we were all needed.’
* * *
Rhys and Grant knew very well what Helene had endured. A surgeon’s table, a makeshift hospital, endless numbers of wounded men with horrific wounds. Blood everywhere. Perhaps some day Helene would tell him of it, describe the pain and gore, and purge it from her memory.
Although he did not forget all he’d seen these last five years, in battle after battle.
Her brow furrowed and her voice shook. ‘I never saw David. I hope he—’ She didn’t finish.
Rhys exchanged a glance with Grant. He looked down at his food, then raised his head and turned to Helene. ‘I saw David.’
Her face brightened. ‘You did?’ Then worry returned. ‘Where?’
‘He was with the Duke of Richmond and his son.’
She let out a relieved breath.
‘But—’ How to tell her? ‘—but he got caught up in the cavalry charge and rode with them. They—they were attacked by French cavalry. I did not see David return.’
She paled and her voice shook. ‘Then he could be dead?’
‘Or wounded,’ Grant said.
‘He rode in a cavalry charge?’ she asked in disbelief.
‘He got caught up in the excitement.’ It was the only explanation Rhys could think of.
She glanced away. ‘Why would he do such a foolish thing?’
If only David had heeded Rhys’s warnings.
She started to rise. ‘I have to find him. ‘How can I find him?’
Rhys leaned towards her and clasped her hand. ‘You cannot find him. There are thousands still lying in the fields. It would be impossible.’
‘I can’t leave him there.’ She stood. ‘I must at least try to find him.’
Rhys jumped to his feet, as well. He held her by her shoulders. ‘You cannot go on to the battlefield. I cannot allow it.’
Her eyes flared in defiance. ‘You cannot stop me! I am finished being told what I can and cannot do!’
Grant stood, as well. ‘Lady Helene, the battlefield will be full of horrors. There are things you should not see—’
She cut him off. ‘I have already seen countless things I should not have seen.’ She tried to pull away.
Rhys continued to hold her. ‘He might not be there. He might be among the wounded. He might even have come through unscathed. He could be anywhere. It is more important we get you back to Brussels.’
She wrenched away. ‘I am going to look for him here. I’m not leaving until I have at least tried.’
Rhys wanted to argue with her, wanted to insist she do as he said, but was not he the one who’d wished she’d followed her heart instead of listening to her father?
No soldier wanted to return to the battlefield the day after a battle. It was a nightmare of a place, showing the true cost of men fighting over such things as land or power. The thought of her stepping into that scene made his stomach roil.
He tapped his fingers against his leg, not wanting
to say what he was about to say. ‘Very well, Helene. But I will search for David on the battlefield. I saw where he rode. I have the best chance of finding him.’
She straightened again. ‘I will go with you.’
‘No,’ Grant chimed in. ‘I will go with Rhys. You can, if you wish, look among the wounded who have not yet been transported. He might be among them.’
Neither Rhys nor Grant really believed that, though. They knew the cost of that cavalry charge.
‘What say Smith and I help the lady look among the wounded?’ Rossiter spoke up.
It was settled.
Rhys and Grant would return to the battlefield.
* * *
Rhys and Grant walked towards the fields where the battle had taken place. What they saw before them was worse than their worst imaginings. The field was covered with the bodies of men and horses. The men were stripped naked, most of them, the plunderers already having swept through, taking whatever could be of value. Even the corpses’ teeth. Without clothing to distinguish one man from another, the task of finding David’s body was made even more difficult.
Their progress through the part of the battlefield where the cavalry charge took place was slowed, because they discovered wounded men still lying on the field. They had to carry these wounded back to others who’d see to their care. Rhys and Grant persisted, however, not talking much, trying not to retch at the stench of sun beating down on the carnage. They managed to carry twenty men off the battlefield.
Finally they pushed to the place where Rhys thought the cuirassiers and lancers had met the British cavalry. They came upon a dying horse and put it swiftly out of its misery.
Walking a little further, Rhys stopped. ‘Did you hear something?’
Grant listened. ‘Whimpering?’
‘Yes.’ Rhys started forward again. ‘That’s what I thought, too.’
They walked around a pile of corpses lying next to a bush and found the source of the sound. A thin, naked figure sat, his back to them, crying like a baby.
Rhys approached the fellow whose face was black with bruises. His cheeks were swollen and there was a cut above his eyebrow, but Rhys recognised him.
‘David?’
David looked up at him, but without any sign of recognition. ‘They took my clothes! And my leg hurts!’
There was a long, deep gash in David’s leg, and his body was covered with bruises.
Grant reached Rhys’s side. ‘Good God.’
Rhys leaned closer to David. ‘Do you see who I am? It is Rhys.’
‘Oh, Rhys!’ Tears rolled down David’s cheeks. ‘Look what they did to me!’ He glanced around. ‘I lost the Duke’s horse.’
Rhys filled with pity for him. ‘We’re going to get you out of here.’
David looked up at him with a helpless expression. ‘I cannot walk.’
‘We’ll carry you out, you dolt.’ Grant’s nerves were obviously frayed. He turned to Rhys. ‘I cannot believe it. We found him.’
‘Alive.’ Rhys had had no hope at all of even finding David’s body. He’d agreed to this search only to stop Helene from stepping foot into this nightmare. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
Rhys slung David over his shoulder like he had that night in Brussels when he’d come face to face with Helene.
David cried out, ‘My leg!’
‘We’ll get you to the surgeons,’ Rhys told him.
And to your sister.
* * *
Rhys and Grant found Helene at one of the field hospitals. She was talking to a man Rhys guessed was the surgeon because he wore an apron soaked in blood. Rossiter and Smith stood nearby chatting with some soldiers from the 28th.
‘Rhys!’ She rushed up to him as soon as she saw him. Her eyes widened when she realised he carried a naked man over his shoulder.
‘Is it?’ she said. ‘Is he alive?’
The surgeon appeared. ‘Here. Put him on a table.’
‘It is David,’ Rhys turned to answer her as he carried David to the table. ‘He is alive.’
Grant spoke to the surgeon. ‘He was conscious until a few minutes ago. I think he passed out because of pain to his leg.’
Helene came up to the table. She cradled David’s head. ‘Oh, David. Look at you.’
His eyes fluttered open for a second.
The surgeon, examining the gash in David’s leg, beckoned some of his assistants. ‘We need to clean this out and stitch it up.’ He looked up at Helene. ‘Your brother?’
‘Yes.’ She inclined her head towards Rhys and Grant. ‘These are my...friends. Captains Landon and Grantwell.’ She looked again towards the surgeon. ‘This is Mr Goode, the surgeon I helped yesterday.’
‘Captains.’ Mr Goode nodded. ‘You know you pulled off a miracle, finding him.’ He didn’t have to add finding him alive.
Rhys nodded to the surgeon. ‘If he can travel, I’d like to take them both back to Brussels today.’
‘We’ve been sending worse on to Brussels,’ Mr Goode said.
Rhys turned to Helene. ‘We have our horses. We’ll ride you back today.’
She walked over to him and wrapped her arms around his neck. ‘How can I ever thank you?’ She turned to Grant. ‘Both of you.’
Chapter Twenty
Brussels was a different city on their return. It was as if the field hospital had simply overflowed by twelve miles. Wounded soldiers were everywhere. In the Parc. On street corners. In shop doorways. Even in the Hotêl de Flandre where they were lying in the dining room and the hall.
Grant left almost immediately to march out with the regiment, but Rhys arranged leave to stay with Helene and help with David. Helene sent word to Louise and Wilson that David had been injured. When Louise saw the conditions of the hotel, she immediately insisted Helene, Rhys and David stay at her house. Mrs Jacobs, who cared for several of the injured, visited there often to change David’s dressing and to see him through the inevitable fever from his wounds. Always full of news and gossip, Mrs Jacobs told them even the mansions of the town’s wealthy were commandeered as hospitals. Everyone was pressed into service.
Louise put David in a cot in a little sitting room off her drawing room. Helene and Rhys shared her second bedchamber on the floor above.
Besides her nights with Rhys, Helene’s favourite times were spent with Louise and Mrs Jacobs in the kitchen where they treated her as a friend—and a very uneducated friend indeed. They taught her how to make bread, how to cook meat, how to clean and launder, things never required of her before.
Her friends were also very watchful for signs she might be carrying a baby, but Helene soon told them there would be no baby. Helene tried to tell herself it was for the best, but, in truth, she was deeply disappointed. Neither Louise nor Mrs Jacobs had any children and Helene wondered if they had yearned for a child with the men they loved. Louise was past the age of childbearing, but at least she and Wilson were to be married as soon as Brussels returned to normal.
This morning Helene, Louise and Mrs Jacobs sat around the kitchen table drinking tea.
‘Now it is not any of my business,’ Mrs Jacobs said. ‘But are you and your Captain planning to get married?’
‘He has not asked me,’ Helene admitted.
It puzzled Helene why Rhys had not spoken of marriage. She understood why he had not done so before the battle—how could any promises be made at that uncertain time? But now the war was over. Napoleon had abdicated a second time.
Mrs Jacobs slapped her hand against the table. ‘He needs to marry you.’ She shook her head sympathetically at Helene. ‘I know how it is when two young people are in love, but he needs to be marrying you. I ought to give him a piece of my mind.’
‘Please do not!’ Helene cried.
Mrs Jacobs crossed her arms over her chest. ‘Well, he’d better hurry or I just might.’
>
Helene tried to change the subject. ‘How is your husband, Mrs Jacobs? Is he still feeling well?’ Her dear Hulbert had recovered and was back to work.
‘Fit as a fiddle.’ Mrs Jacobs then shook a finger at Helene. ‘Now what must we do to make your Captain come up to snuff?’
‘Nothing!’ cried Helene.
Helene was gloriously happy to be with Rhys every day, to be sharing his bed every night. It seemed that they’d put the past thoroughly behind them, but why did Rhys not speak of the future?
‘Helene!’ David’s voice reached all the way into the kitchen.
Her brother took up the rest of Helene’s time and she was very worried about him. At first, he was in a great deal of pain and the infection from his injury made him feverish, but now, after four weeks recuperating, he was more afflicted with nightmares and often woke in a panic.
‘Helene!’ he cried again.
She finished her cup of tea. ‘I should go to him.’
Mrs Jacobs stood. ‘I can see what the lad wants if you like.’
Helene motioned for her to sit again. ‘No, I’ll go. You have your other patients to see. Finish your tea first.’
She walked out of the kitchen, up the stairs and through the drawing room where she and Rhys had first spoken to Louise, to the small room behind it.
‘Helene!’ David’s voice became more hysterical as she reached the threshold of the room.
‘I am here.’ She tried to sound calm, but she was alarmed at this mania he seemed unable to shake. ‘What is it?’
David sat upright in bed, his body trembling, his eyes wide with fear. The swelling in his face had disappeared, but his bruises had turned various colours, now a sort of yellowish brown. ‘I—I had a dream!’
She walked over to him and brushed his hair with her fingers. ‘It was only a dream.’ She did not have to ask what of. She knew he’d returned to the field of the dead and dying. ‘We should do something.’ Something to distract him. ‘Would you like to get up? Play a game of cards? I’ll play cards with you if you get out of bed and come sit in the drawing room.’