“Yes, there can!” The masked man’s words were slow but clear. “The fault was mine. Yours were the only cottages not yet hit. I should have known they’d set a watch. We were damn fools to think our luck would hold. We were fair caught in the militia’s trap.”
“I’ll not believe it!” the burly man exclaimed, undaunted by the masked man’s words. “She’s done for us good and proper.”
“Mrs. Tarleton’s not to blame, I’d stake my life on it,” the wounded man declared stubbornly.
“You already have, I’m thinkin’,” the second stranger growled.
“You’re all a great bunch of loobies, jabbering about guilt while he bleeds to death,” Julia declared roundly, pushing them all aside to kneel by the wounded man. The question of honor could wait.
“I’ve told them I have no experience with gunshot wounds,” Sophy said in some agitation. “That we must send for Dr. Caldecott, but they’ll not have it.” Her voice quavered with the emotion of a born healer frustrated in her desire to help a patient.
“Well, I’ve seen more gunshot wounds than I care to remember,” Julia stated with confidence. “It’s bleeding rather more than I like but ’tis a mere scratch compared to a grapeshot wound.”
A vision of Nicholas’ gaping wounds blotted out the room. Blood drained from her face and for a moment Julia swayed, nausea rising in her throat. With a burst of grim determination, she slammed the door on the terrible images of her final days in Spain. She would think only of this man—masked though he might be—lying there bleeding through the compress Sophy had pressed against his shoulder.
“’Tis obvious you need to brush up on your military tactics,” Julia said to her patient with some asperity, her distress lending tartness to her tongue. “Your men need to mind their manners and my own staff needs to remember that I was raised dealing with emergencies of this nature. I am neither missish nor incompetent. Nor,” she added with a seething glance at the two strangers, “am I without honor!
“You are fortunate,” she continued to her patient. “No vital organ has been touched. The sole danger is fever and Sophy and I should have no trouble dealing with it.” Steadily, Julia regarded Mrs. Peters, whose customary volubility had turned mute as her employer burst through the door. The housekeeper was wringing her hands, twisting her apron into a mass of wrinkles. Julia raised her voice to penetrate Mrs. Peters’ shock. “Where is the most secluded bedroom, ma’am? One where none of the staff will be wont to go?”
“I can’t stay here!” the masked man gasped.
“Don’t be a fool!” Julia snapped. “Where will you find better care? Or do you wish to wait until some despairing friend must send for the good Dr. Caldecott who is undoubtedly hand in glove with the militia?”
“Oh, very well,” the wounded man growled with ill grace. “If you wish to be transported or hanged at my side, so be it.”
“I doubt you’ll be so snappish after we have the bullet out of you,” Julia retorted. “Best we get you to bed first. Mrs. Peters, please lead the way. Sophy, get what you need from the stillroom. The rest of you, help…the captain. I’ll join you as soon as I get my medical bag.”
As Julia bounded to her feet, her progress toward the door was arrested by the stunned expressions on the other occupants of the room. The only exception was the masked man, whose only visible feature, his eyes, showed a distinct twinkle of amusement. “What are you looking at?” Julia demanded. “Did you expect a fit of the vapors? A watering pot of feminine weakness? I was raised following the drum, you know. The captain will do very well, I assure you. Now get along with you before he drips blood on the sofa for all the world to see.”
The stunned cavalcade left in Julia’s wake got under way only after Miss Upton waved vinaigrette under Mrs. Peters’ nose and the masked man sharply ordered his henchmen to stop bickering and do as they were told.
Julia made it as far as the great wardrobe in her bedchamber before she began to shake. As she knelt on the floor and pushed aside her meager number of gowns, reaching far back into the corner to grasp the bag of medical supplies, her legs gave way and she hit the floor with a thump. She gazed at the battered leather bag and La Coruña came flooding back. The huge stone room echoing with the cries of the wounded and dying. The tainted smell of blood, vomit and loosened bowels. Ensign Welland, Nicholas, Tom Pickering. Nicholas, Chaplain Wedderburn, Nicholas. Mrs. James, Nicholas…pale, so very pale, struggling to speak. To do what he believed was right. Julia clasped the bag to her heart, rocking back and forth, crying huge gulping tears.
Courage, Julia! Where’s my dauntless daughter of the regiment? The voice came out of nowhere. Out of the air. Out of her fevered brain. She gulped and sniffled, fished in her pocket for a handkerchief. Noisily, she blew her nose. She may have been fit only for Bedlam but before they took her away she had a job to perform.
Julia grasped the handle of the wardrobe and levered herself to her feet. She stood there, still braced by the wardrobe, hands trembling, doubting her legs could move. In a dark corner just beyond the fireplace, a wisp of smoke coalesced into…no, it couldn’t be! Julia blinked. The mocking, challenging eyes were still there. Nicholas’ eyes. This time, when Julia blinked, the eyes were gone. The light of the dying fire revealed nothing unusual.
All right, damn you, I’ll do it! Julia snapped to the air where the eyes had been. She bent down and grasped the medical bag firmly with one hand, finding comfort in its familiar grip. As she had done far too many times in her nineteen years, she squared her shoulders and went forth to do her duty.
Peters was waiting for her in the hallway, his elderly body fairly quivering with the opportunity to show his mistress he could still cope with a difficult situation. “I’ve sent those two men on their way,” he confided. “No need for them to know where we’ve put the captain. We managed quite well without them.”
“I cannot say I’m sorry to see them go but I shall need Daniel Runyon. Please bring him to me as soon as possible.”
To Julia’s surprise Peters led her back down the stairs, through the main entry hall and down a long corridor to the kitchen area, where he opened the door into a large storage room crowded with stacks of supplies. The room was devoid of life. Julia was tempted to ask if this were a new kind of dungeon in which she was to be imprisoned for her alleged betrayal, then decided it would be cruel to fluster Peters when he was obviously relishing his role in the evening’s drama. She would let him have his little joke.
Silently, she followed him to a large wooden cupboard at the rear of the room, watching in fascination as he touched some hidden mechanism. The rear wall of the cupboard, shelves and all, swung back into a cavity revealing a narrow staircase leading upward. “I don’t believe this was on my household tour,” Julia murmured drily.
The butler paused with his foot on the first step, the glow of his wavering candle clearly highlighting his mortification. “No, ma’am, I fear ’tis a bit of a family secret, an embarrassment really. Miss Summerton’s grandfather lived alone for many years, a recluse he was and he added on this area next to the kitchens so he could…um…receive guests in private.” To Julia’s astonishment the elderly butler blushed to the roots of his white hair. “There’s a door behind the tapestry at the end of the upstairs hallway but it’s long been blocked by a chest of drawers. The doorway into the storage room from the outside is overgrown with ivy, so at present, the kitchen hallway is the only access. Considering the circumstances, ma’am, it seemed the best place to put the captain.” Peters paused and eyed his mistress with considerable misgiving.
“An excellent notion,” Julia agreed heartily. “I am quite delighted Miss Summerton’s ancestor was so…secretive.” Since she could see light at the top of the stairs, Julia bade Peters fetch Dan Runyon and started up the narrow steps alone.
No priest’s hole, the room was spacious and quickly warming from a newly lit blaze in the fireplace. The nature of the guest or guests entertained here was apparent from th
e femininity of the furnishings. A canopy bed draped in azure silk, a thick Aubusson carpet in tones of azure and rose, delicate furniture painted in white and gold. Against this backdrop the large, roughly clad and still masked figure of the wounded man made a startling contrast. He was lying to one side of the large bed, a heavy muslin sheet protecting the silk bed coverings. On a table by the bed Sophy was laying out lint and strips of muslin. Julia strode across the room, reaching for the black mask. A hand clamped over her wrist, the grip surprisingly strong.
“Don’t be a fool,” Julia snapped, “you must be suffocating under there. I’ve known who you were since that first night at the inn.” The grip on her arm tightened until it was painful. “I left my reticule in the private parlor. When I came down to get it, I overheard what was being said in the common room. I didn’t understand it until later but I knew the voice was yours, as I recognized your voice tonight. So give over, Captain Hood, so I can get on with my work.”
“If I do, will you be able to lie under oath and say you never saw the face of the man you helped?” The grip was still tight, the voice grim.
“I don’t expect it to come to that.”
“You should.”
“Let go!”
“I’ve no wish to ruin your life as well as my own.”
“For God’s sake, Jack, stop being so damned noble!”
With a groan of exasperation, Jack dropped his hand.
“Look at you,” Julia accused as she stripped away the mask. “You’ve sweat a river beneath that thing.” Sophy handed her a damp cloth that smelled of violets. Gently, Julia cleaned Jack’s face while silently vowing that this was one patient she was not going to lose. Even the tiniest scratch could become poisonous and kill without mercy.
“Have you done this before?” Jack demanded.
“Once or twice,” Julia hedged, “but Dan Runyon has done a good many. Ah, good!” She made no effort to hide her relief as the major’s batman entered the room. With him came the physical strength and the moral support she sorely needed. And no need to fear he’d reveal she had never done more than assist in such an operation before. Or that he himself had gone no further than holding a man steady for the surgeon’s knife.
Much later, when Jack had at last sunk into sleep, Julia sat with her head between her knees and shook with the aftermath of the ordeal. Peters and his wife cleared away the debris of bloodied sheets and bandages. Sophy straightened her array of medicinal oils and ointments. And Julia devoutly prayed Jack Harding would never discover just how fortunate he was she had not made a botch of it. She might well have saved him the agony of being hanged.
Daniel thrust a brimming glass of brandy into her hand. “We didn’t quite pour it all over the wound, Missus. I saved you a mite. Drink up, girl, you’ve earned it. And, indeed, you’re far too strapping a wench for me to carry back to bed.”
In spite of herself, Julia chuckled. Brandy had never tasted so good.
Neither Julia nor Sophy demurred when Daniel volunteered to sit with the patient. Best they both be rested before fever set in, as it surely would. Before leaving, Julia had Daniel move the imposing chest of drawers that blocked the entrance from the upstairs hallway. “We’ll be careful, I promise,” she said in response to the butler’s protest. “Sophy and I must be able to come in and out quickly and not tromp up and down half the stairs and hallways in The Willows to get here.”
Julia paused, studying her companions in sudden fascination. They had all been so busy dealing with the crisis that she had not had time to consider what a strange group of conspirators they were. An elderly butler, his terrified yet determined spouse and a spinster herbalist who in an earlier century might well have been burned as a witch. Laetitia Summerton must have been a true original to have allowed—encouraged?—such free thinking among her staff. Daniel and herself? They had asked only for peace, a small quiet corner of England to call their own. They had no thought to defy convention or risk criminal prosecution. And yet here they were. Risking all for someone else’s cause. For compassion. And friendship.
“I want you to know,” Julia declared, standing tall, “I am very proud to be part of this household. And I know Nicholas would have been—would be—proud of you too. Thank you all. Goodnight.”
She turned and slipped through a narrow crack in the door to the upper hallway, gently moving out from beneath the heavy tapestry, smoothing it in place behind her. With her went the image of Jack’s still figure, large, masculine and incongruous in the dainty bed with its azure silk hangings. A lock of chestnut hair glistened on his pale, damp forehead. His face, though still gaunt with pain, was younger in sleep. Vulnerable. The sharp edges smoothed away. This was a life she would not lose. This one was for Nicholas.
* * * * *
It was past ten in the morning before Julia was back in the secret room, just in time to watch Sophy pour some of her precious red oil of St. John’s wort into a ceramic bowl of steaming water. Sophy wrung out a cloth in the water and bathed Jack’s wound. She then dipped a pad of lint into the herbal mix and laid it over Julia’s careful stitches, binding it in place with fresh muslin bandages.
“You should have been with us in Spain,” Julia approved with sincerity.
“Miss Upton, you are a Trojan,” Jack declared with a grin. “No fever would dare come near one of your patients.”
“Would that were true,” Sophy demurred. “If you avoid the fever, Mr. Harding, more likely it will be due to the brandy Dan Runyon poured over you than to any of my mixtures. But Julia used the last of the army’s styrax ointment on you last night and that comes from the Far East, so we must make do with what we have.”
“Even if I’d lost half the blood in my body, Caldecott would have bled me,” said Jack with scorn. “’Tis the only remedy he knows. Though what I’ve done to deserve the kindness of two such fine ladies is beyond my understanding.”
“You are to be quiet, young man,” Sophy ordered. “Fever is inevitably exacerbated by agitation. You are perfectly safe here and so are we. Julia, my dear, I have left an infusion of mint and thyme which you may use to bathe his face and arms. I judge it more to his taste than the violet which was all I had ready last night.” With a promise to send up a simple broth for the invalid’s lunch and return in person by early afternoon, Miss Upton departed by way of the stairs and thence through the cupboard door into the storeroom.
A wounded, semiconscious Jack was one thing. A living, breathing six feet of maleness clad only in a nightshirt which had been cut open to allow easy access to the wound in his shoulder was quite another. Jack lay back against the pillows and regarded Julia from under his eyelashes as she wrung out a cloth in the cool herbal mixture Sophy had left. When he became aware she was carefully avoiding looking at him, he was patient. And amused. Obviously, she could not avoid him much longer.
There had been very little pampering in his life. If asked the day before, he would have termed the actions of the women at The Willows as “feminine fussing”. It had not taken long to discover he was wrong. Being locked away in a room with a handsome young woman who was bathing your forehead and cheeks, lips, neck, and upper chest with the heady scent of herbs was enough to convince him that a fever—a slight fever—would not be such a bad thing. The thought of lingering here for several days was no longer anathema.
Deftly, Jack caught the hand that was spreading Miss Upton’s soothing balm under his chin. He turned the soft female flesh of Julia’s inner wrist into his lips. With a small cry she jerked her hand away, scattering a shower of drops from the cloth onto the bed covers, onto herself. A wicked gleam filled Jack’s eyes as she stood and glared at him, bristling with anger.
“Behave yourself, Mr. Harding, or I shall leave you all alone here ’til Miss Upton returns.”
Jack slumped against his pillows, the gleam transmuted into a wan smile. His long golden lashes fluttered down over his slightly feverish cheeks. “I cannot believe you’d be so cruel,” he moaned.
“My fever is rising,” Jack pronounced mournfully as she straightened her cloth and laid it out to dry. “My forehead hurts.”
Julia met his limpid gaze with suspicion. No kicked puppy had ever looked more in need of love and reassurance. No wonder Captain Hood had been so successful at dissembling. He was an actor of no little talent. “I shall bathe you again in twenty minutes,” said Julia sternly. “And only if you do not go beyond the line.” Why Sophy should choose to disappear and leave her alone with him she could not imagine.
In a lightning transformation Jack the quick-witted was back. “May not a poor wounded man indulge in a bit of fun?”
“Let us change the subject,” Julia said firmly, seating herself in a chair pulled close to the bed. “Have you done anything about accounting for your absence?”
“I told Rob and Jem—the ones you found so charming last night—to spread the word that I have gone to London on business. I do escape occasionally to the city, so that should come as no surprise, though I fear the militia may not be wholly free from suspicion. Bastardy does have its good points, however. The militia will think very carefully about arresting the son of an earl, even one born on the wrong side of the blanket.”
Julia frowned in concern as Jack closed his eyes, obviously wearied by his long speech. “You should not have done it,” he whispered with fierce intensity. “You should not have taken such a risk.”
“Helping someone is not something you think about, Mr. Harding. It’s simply something you do. In the army I did it because I wished to be of service, because it seemed the right thing to do. It was part of following the drum.” She paused, searching for words. “Otherwise, I was a child. I was spoiled, heedless. Except for the death of my mother I had suffered little. The challenges of life with the army were part of a vast game in which I was one of the privileged players. I had no inclination to analyze or contemplate my way of life. The arrogance, the indulgence of being the daughter of the regiment would, of course, go on forever. Or so I thought.”
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