The Woman at the Front

by Lecia Cornwall

  It was on the tip of Eleanor’s tongue to inform the nurse that she was a doctor and she had never fainted in her life. She also considered asking to see Louis’s medical chart, but she suspected telling this woman she’d come to assess Louis’s medical condition and treatment would be like throwing gasoline on hot embers. She’d speak to the surgeon first, and the commandant.

  She met the suspicion and curiosity in the matron’s eyes squarely. “I will be sure to inform the duty nurse if the lieutenant needs anything.”

  The woman nodded crisply and took Eleanor past the curtain, leading her into the ward. It smelled of carbolic and soap, which didn’t entirely hide the scent of wounds and male bodies. There was little to see, as every bed was draped and shuttered as if it were laundry day.

  The matron paused, cleared her throat, and spoke through the linen wall. “You have a visitor, Lieutenant.” She waited for a few decorous moments, then pulled back the curtain. She left it open, tied it back, and, with a final scowl of warning and disapproval, she stepped back and let Eleanor enter.

  Louis’s right leg was extended in a splint that stabilized his broken leg.

  “Why, it’s Eleanor Atherton!” His handsome face lit up, and those sleepy-bright blue eyes were roaming over her, making his own male assessment.

  She stood before him like a ninny, wondering if she should offer her hand for him to shake. Or should she curtsy? Perhaps she should take his pulse?

  Did one curtsy to a viscount, especially if that viscount was her brother’s friend? She’d forgotten how beautiful he was, how looking at him made her heart thrill and her stomach come alive with butterflies. The old familiar tingle of her girlish crush made her light-headed and giddy, and she was unable to say anything more than a half-whispered “Hello.”

  He held out his hand to take hers and squeezed it as if she were an old and dear friend. “What a lovely surprise! I had no idea you were in France. Did Edward come with you?” He raised her fingers to his lips, kissed her knuckles, then turned her palm up to smell her wrist. “You smell divine, like summer roses, like Yorkshire.”

  He was sniffing her. Eleanor’s fingers curled into her palm, and her toes curled in her boots. Laughter fizzed in her breast. He was looking at her with utter joy, seeing her, smiling at her, glad to see her. “Thank you, L—” She hesitated. Should she call him Louis, address him as Lieutenant Chastaine, or use his title? She settled for giving him a bright smile that felt forced and rushed past all that.

  “No, Edward isn’t here.” Did the joy in his expression fade just a little? “I’m here because your mother—the countess—sent me.”

  The expression in his eyes congealed, turning cold and suspicious, and he let go of her hand at once. “My mother? What on earth for? I had no idea she even knew I was here. I certainly didn’t tell her. But I suppose they notify one’s next of kin when these things happen, don’t they?”

  His eyes roamed over her, from the prim lace at her collar to the muddy hem of her skirt, more wary than delighted now. “How kind of her not to come herself,” he muttered, looking as petulant as a ten-year-old.

  She looked away and scanned his left forearm. The burn that covered the back of his hand and wrist was crusty and purple, but healing. She noticed a small tattoo on his forearm—a bird with outstretched wings.

  Not an eagle or a falcon. “Is that a sparrow?” she asked.

  He followed her gaze to the mark. “Yes. Someone’s idea of a joke, because I’m a flier. I was drunk at the time, so it might well have been my idea. My mother will be furious, of course. Probably why I did it. And you can see my heroic burns, of course. Now, those will leave a scar that will be hard to hide. I daresay she’ll mind that even more. She can’t abide ugliness.”

  “She’s worried about you,” Eleanor said. “She asked me to come and—”

  “Why you, exactly?” he interrupted, shrewd and serious now. “Other than our connection through Edward, of course.”

  They were strangers, he meant. There was nothing in his gaze now but the question, no flirtation or admiration or delight. She squared her shoulders. “She asked me to come because I’m a doctor. I’m to supervise your care on your journey home. Your mother thought traveling privately would be better, more comfortable, and—”

  “Home?” His eyes widened.

  She smiled at him the way she’d been trained, tilted her head, and offered bland reassurance and encouragement, with a modicum of coddling. “When you’re well enough, of course. I shall have to confer with your doctors here and make arrangements when—”

  “What’s going on here?” A tall, broad man in uniform marched down the aisle between the beds with the matron behind him, and behind her came Chaplain Strong, looking concerned. He slipped past the nurse with the agility of desperation, his concerned gaze on Eleanor.

  “Hello again, Miss Atherton,” he said brightly, coming to a stop between herself and the officer. “May I introduce our commandant, Colonel Bellford? Colonel, this is Miss Atherton.”

  The colonel stopped at the foot of Louis’s bed and glared at Eleanor, ignoring the niceties of introduction. She noted the RAMC insignia, the flashes and badges on his shoulders and collar, the gold frogging on his sleeves that marked his rank.

  “Colonel, if I may, I fear I might have given you the wrong impression when I said Miss Atherton was a doctor—” the chaplain began, trying to catch the commander’s attention, but the matron gasped in horror, as if the chaplain had announced she was a cabaret dancer about to shed her clothing and perform. She added her own affronted glare to the colonel’s, piercing Eleanor with it.

  “Uh-oh,” Louis murmured beside her. “You’re in for it now, El, old girl.”

  The colonel ignored the quip, the nurse, and the chaplain and kept his attention on Eleanor. “Who precisely are you?”

  She stood frozen to the spot. She knew that look—the indignation, the annoyance. It was the way her father looked at her, the way he spoke to her. She recognized the bully, the martinet, the kind of man who must always be right and in charge. The kind of man who did not countenance female doctors.

  She fought the urge to smile and placate him. She was here at the behest of the Countess of Kirkswell, after all; she had her ladyship’s full confidence. She squared her shoulders. “I’m Dr. Eleanor Atherton.”

  “I understand you think you’re a doctor”—he said it like it was a sin, his mouth twisting on the word—“but why are you here?”

  She reached into her pocket, fumbling for the wallet that held the countess’s letter of introduction. She unfolded the monogrammed sheet of stationery and held it out.

  She remembered Sergeant MacLeod’s warning. The colonel has the authority to send ye home.

  “I have a letter from—”

  “I can read, Miss Atherton.” He snatched the letter from her and glanced briefly at the crest and the countess’s signature, then scanned the rest. His red complexion darkened to plum.

  “This is my hospital. Mine. This is not some suffragette’s lark. We are in a war zone, and this man is a wounded military officer and therefore under my direct care.”

  There’s a war on, he might have said. No time for manners or niceties, no polite couching of harsh words to soften their effect. Military orders trumped the rules of civilian authority, even the aristocratic command of a close friend of their majesties. The colonel could indeed send her packing at once. She watched his mouth open as he drew breath to speak, knowing he intended to do just that. She imagined the smug complacency on her father’s face when she came slinking home without Louis. He wouldn’t say a word, of course, would simply remind her to turn the light out when she was finished scrubbing the surgery.

  Louis spoke first. “If I may, sir, my mother sent her—the Countess of Kirkswell. That’s the family crest on the stationery. If you’ve kept up with Country Life, then you’ll
know my mother is very active in war work. She’s quite busy donating motorcycles, cutting ribbons, and supervising the planting of potatoes on the south lawn of the old pile, among other good works.” He sent Eleanor a cheeky grin. “I can vouch for Miss Atherton. I doubt she’s a suffragette. She’s an old and dear friend of the family.” He took her hand in his. “Not only that, Dr. Atherton is very highly qualified. She is my mother’s personal physician and treats my father’s gout. In fact, he’ll allow no other doctor to attend him.”

  The colonel looked at her in surprise. So did the matron and the chaplain. Eleanor felt a blush fill her cheeks at the exaggerations, the outright lies. Louis squeezed her hand, and she saw mischief in his eyes. She withdrew her hand from his and lifted her chin. She’d fight her own battle. She looked the colonel in the eye. “I was asked by the countess to provide medical care for Lieutenant Chastaine on his journey home. Her ladyship wishes him to have companionship and medical care. Private care. My care.”

  “A worried mother,” the chaplain said softly, as if the countess were the holy virgin, which would have made Louis—Eleanor swallowed a nervous bubble of mirth at that idea. “That’s most understandable under the circumstances, don’t you think, sir?” Strong added.

  The colonel ignored the chaplain and waved the letter over the splint. “If you are any kind of doctor at all, then you can see for yourself that Lieutenant Chastaine cannot be moved for some weeks yet. He needs rest, and the bones must have time to knit before he undertakes the rigors of travel. If he were jostled roughly on the open road at this point it would cause pain and potentially infection, even death. I am doing everything possible for him right here. You may do for treating an earl’s ulcer, but the earl is not a doctor, nor is the countess. I am—and I do not know anything about you, young woman.”

  “Gout,” Louis murmured. “Didn’t I say it was gout?” Eleanor wished he’d be quiet, or at least serious. “Is there a chance I can leave now, today, with you?” he pleaded.

  She looked over the splint, the half-healed burns. The colonel was right. “No, not yet.” The chaplain let out a relieved breath. The matron made an indignant noise in her throat. The colonel didn’t move at all.

  Louis’s charming grin turned into a petulant pout. “It’s been weeks. I am tired of being trussed up like a holiday goose. I thought I’d emerge from the operating theater with an onion in my beak and sausage stuffing up my—”

  The matron gasped. “Mind your language, Lieutenant!”

  Louis glowered at her. “Then when can I go?” he demanded.

  “May I see Lieutenant Chastaine’s case notes, please?” Eleanor asked.

  The colonel looked like a bull about to snort fire. “The notes? Young woman, do you know anything about wounds sustained on the battlefield? Have you seen what gas gangrene can do to a man, how quickly infection can spread, even with a minor wound, and do worse harm than a bomb or a bullet? Have you any understanding of what a triumph it is to save even one badly wounded man, to bring him back from the brink of death, to know he will be useful and able to serve again because of timely and expert medical care? If you do, then the training for female doctors has changed since I was at medical school.”

  Eleanor felt herself blushing. “I have read everything possible about the new techniques being developed here in France, the new antiseptics and improved methods of care.” She glanced at the matron. “I know it was nurses who developed the best treatment for shock.” Instead of looking pleased by the recognition, the nurse continued to glare indignantly at Eleanor.

  “You have read about it,” Colonel Bellford scoffed.

  “This isn’t proper, Colonel,” the matron said. “Think of the example it will set for the nurses and the VADs if she stays—”

  The chaplain weighed in. “What does Lieutenant Chastaine have to say? Perhaps he does not want a woman prodding and poking at him, or perhaps—”

  “Oh, prod away,” Louis said brightly. He sent Eleanor a wink. “Just know that I have no tolerance for pain.”

  “Miss Atherton does have written authority, Colonel,” Chaplain Strong said, looking pointedly at the letter in the colonel’s hand. Matron Connolly cast a surreptitious look at the paper, reading over the chaplain’s shoulder. Her brows twitched, and she drew back with a frown, and Eleanor knew she recognized her credentials as official.

  “She does not have my authority,” the colonel said, turning his wrath on the chaplain. Strong stood patiently in the face of it, like Daniel facing the lions.

  “I also have a letter from Colonel Sir Hugo Ferris,” Eleanor said quickly, keeping her eyes on the crumpled paper in the colonel’s hand. “I believe he has already been to visit Lieutenant Chastaine.”

  “Ah. So that’s how my mother found out I was here. Sir Hugo told her,” Louis said. He flicked a glance at Eleanor, his eyes narrowed, assessing her true purpose before he turned his attention back to the colonel. “The colonel is not only my godfather, he’s a regimental commander and friend of the king’s—and of Sir Douglas Haig.” He looked charmingly apologetic. “He outranks you, sir. My mother, of course, outranks us all. Well, perhaps not the king, but most certainly the kaiser.” He gave the matron a dazzling smile. “Mater is the dragon of all dragons. If I have no objection to Dr. Atherton’s care, why should anyone else? You’ve done all the important work, Colonel. She needs only to keep an eye on me, take my temperature, rub my back, and see the bandages aren’t too tight. My morale will surely be improved by the company of an old and dear family friend, and her qualifications will undoubtedly relieve the nurses of the burden of one more tiresome patient.”

  He batted his golden lashes at her. “But you should know that I can be quite tiresome indeed, dearest Eleanor—Dr. Atherton. I hope you’re prepared to be patient, mop my fevered brow, and soothe me when I’m pettish.”

  Matron Connolly made a strangled sound of outrage.

  Bellford folded the countess’s letter and handed it back to her. He returned Colonel Ferris’s note as well. “It appears you have friends in very high places, Miss Atherton, but look to the lieutenant himself—it is quite possible to fall from high places, even when one has all the cheek and confidence in the world. Make no mistake. This facility and all the other patients within it are forbidden to you. I hope that’s clear. I will continue to monitor Lieutenant Chastaine. All decisions regarding his care, even if it’s just to prescribe a headache powder, must be approved by me. If his condition worsens or if I feel he’s not receiving proper care, I will not hesitate to step in, no matter who has authorized your presence here, is that clear?”

  She could stay. She resisted the urge to whoop.

  Instead she straightened her spine and nodded crisply. “Perfectly, Colonel. I shall provide you with regular reports on the lieutenant’s health. Would you prefer them in writing, or shall we confer in person?” Her attempt at being professional, the way a male doctor would be, fell flat. Bellford’s eyes narrowed, and his nostrils flared.

  “I shall continue to visit this patient daily to see for myself.”

  “There now, all settled, then,” Reverend Strong said cheerily. “I’d be pleased to see that Dr. Atherton is made comfortable in the guest quarters. She’s had a long journey, and no breakfast.” He beamed at her as if she hadn’t just nearly been flayed within an inch of her life and almost sent packing. “Sergeant MacLeod asked me to make certain you ate.”

  “Thank you,” Eleanor said, as much to the absent Scot as to the chaplain, and moved to follow him, but Louis caught her hand.

  “When will you return to me?” he asked, and the admiring look in his eyes, even if it was a mocking one, melted her knees. As good as a handkerchief. Better, even.

  “Soon,” she murmured. Once she’d had something to eat, a bath, and a chance to comb her hair.

  “Make sure you come straight here. You’re not to set foot in the other wards. T
he sight of a female doctor, the very idea of one, would upset the wounded,” the colonel reminded her sharply.

  She nodded. She’d won her first battle. He was allowing her to stay. “As you wish, Colonel.”

  Reverend Strong was waiting, and she looked at Louis, waiting for him to release her hand. His eyes were keen on her, lit with male interest. It was the way she’d seen him look at other, prettier girls, girls she’d always envied. Feminine delight filled her. “I’ll be back soon,” she said.

  He let her go. “I’ll be counting the minutes.”

  The chaplain was regarding them with interest.

  “No doubt you’ll want to hear all the news of home,” she said lightly.

  But Louis couldn’t resist. He’d never been able to resist a chance to be wicked. “Oh, I have Country Life for all that. It’s you I’m interested in, El.” He raised her hand to his mouth again and let his lips linger, his glittering eyes on hers.

  She plucked her hand free, unsure if he was flirting or serious, not knowing how to respond. “I’ll be back soon,” she said again.

  He chuckled as she followed the chaplain out, and she knew he’d been teasing her yet again.

  But this time it was a grown-up, man-woman kind of teasing. Flirtation. Who knew where it might lead? To friendship, perhaps, warm regard, or—

  Heartbreak, a small inner voice warned her.

  She turned at the door. Louis was still watching her, his eyes heavy lidded, his smile winsome—and completely false.

  She bit her lower lip and tasted the faint echo of Sergeant MacLeod’s whisky on her skin, and it made her think of him instead. He’d left her less than an hour ago, and in that time the whole world had changed. She could stay. She wanted to find him and tell him, as if he were an old friend, someone who would understand just what this meant to her. The chaplain opened the door for her, and the winter wind hit her hot cheeks, stealing her breath and replacing it with a dose of sense. She’d known Fraser MacLeod for a few scant hours, shared on a dark journey. He’d been good company, and that was all. She closed her eyes as the wind swept a lock of her hair across her face. And when she did, she could see the intense gray stare that was so different from Louis’s flirtatious gaze.