It Started at Waterloo

by Lynne Connolly

  “He needs to stop,” she said bluntly. “I have scarcely seen him since our marriage. He works non-stop, seems consumed with the desire to make everyone under his care well. He feels every death, every loss. If he continues this way, I’ll be a widow before the year is out.”

  The duke leaned back, the chair creaking. “And what do you suggest?”

  “I don’t know. When I try to talk to him about it, he asks me unanswerable questions, like ‘Do you wish this man to die?’ I have the same ambitions he does, but he won’t achieve them this way.”

  All the counter arguments echoed in her mind. They had lost many brave men, some with greater ability than Will. She was his wife and should obey her husband in all things. She should consider what the patients would do without him. She ignored them all.

  But the duke said none of these things. He gazed at her for a brief moment, his grey eyes disconcertingly perceptive, then nodded. “If he continues in this state, he will kill someone.”

  It was on the tip of her tongue to say it had nearly happened today. But the duke might take that amiss, so she held her peace. By now she knew he cared for his men, and the casualty numbers laid heavy on his heart. He should care for Will.

  “Very well. I have a solution. But you must accept the consequences of your actions.”

  “Yes, sir, I know that. But I cannot see his brilliance wasted.”

  If that meant Will would hear of her visit, then so be it. She would bear his opprobrium. She wanted him alive, and if that meant incurring his displeasure, or even their estrangement, then she would live with her decision.

  She went back to their room heavy of heart and watched Will until he stirred. Between them, the laconic Robinson and herself ensured he didn’t leave bed that day, although they were hard put to prevent him returning. However, such was the enervation of his limbs that he found visiting the powder room difficult. He could not have patrolled the wards and stood for hours at a time while he worked.

  He eventually vented his temper on his manservant. Robinson commented to her when they were out of Will’s hearing, “That’ll be the twentieth time he’s dismissed me from his service.”

  She could well believe it. He had cut her out so completely for the last week that she had ceased to be, except as a useful assistant. He’d been so concentrated on his duties that she wondered if there was more to it than his explanation that they had too much work to do and they’d start their married life soon.

  Was he avoiding her? She would not blame him if he changed his mind, if he regretted his marriage. She did not, at least not where her husband was concerned.

  The next day, Wellington paid them a visit. He stood inside the room at the inn, nodded at her and then Will. “Your lady wife tells me you’re unwell.”

  Will glared at her before he got to his feet and offered his hand to the duke. “I’m surprised she wasted your time. It was merely tiredness. I’ll be back in the wards tomorrow.”

  Where he would no doubt work himself into unconsciousness again. Will had worked for six years on the battlefields in Spain, France and Belgium, and he didn’t know how to stop. He would become less effective, and his brilliance would be lost. But would he understand that she’d had to do something or would her action mark the end of their marriage?

  The duke would not turn away. That was why she’d asked him to help. “Will, I have a task for you, and you are the only man I can trust.”

  Will paused, totally still. “Sir? I am not so indispensable, I’m sure.”

  “In this you are. You have the practical experience to prove you know your subject, and the rank to make people listen. What I need is a report.”

  He fixed Will with the stare that had kept the greatest in Europe in thrall to him. “I need this, Will. You have taught the other surgeons well. The crisis here is over and you are wasting your considerable talents. You are both surgeon and earl. You have the social standing to achieve what many before you have failed to do. You may make a difference, and make yourself heard, but it does mean sacrifice. Go home, establish yourself in society and write the report I need. You can turn your learning into something permanent, or you can let it die.”

  “You want me to become the earl?” Will said, distaste coloring his voice.

  “Yes. Why not? You should use every weapon at your command to get what you need. Or do you believe in waste? Not from the way I’ve seen you work. Instead of ignoring one of the most powerful weapons at your command, use it.”

  “What do you want?” Will rubbed his hand over his head, pushing back his thick, dark hair.

  “To begin with, a report. A white paper we can present in Parliament. The reformers are rampant at present, and I could use a way of calming them, and of using their enthusiasm to good end.”

  “You are talking like a politician.”

  The duke huffed a laugh. “I am a politician. Don’t you know anything about a general’s work? Will, how do you expect to get anything done? To leave a mark on the world? Sooner or later you have to engage with people who disagree with you and make sacrifices for the common good. Only if you are prepared to use everything you have will you win. I ask for a report on surgical techniques, but I would like more. I do not know how far you can go, and I suspect you do not either.”

  Will said nothing for a full five minutes, but strode about the room restlessly. Then he turned to Amelia, who was sitting, trying not to be overawed by what was happening here. “Did you know about this?”

  The duke glanced at her and gave her a tiny shake of his head. Amelia imitated his action.

  “You know I can do nothing without your help?” Will said.

  “Will, I’m not—”

  He slashed a hand through the air, interrupting her. “You heard his grace. You don’t know what you can do until you put your mind to it. So far you’ve only ventured into the wards. But I know you to be quick and clever, as well as nimble with your hands. You have a clean way of thinking. You can strip away the extraneous matter as fast as I can strip a wound.”

  A chill passed through her, but it was not unpleasant. It was more akin to when the wind changed to a northerly one, cutting through the way she had considered herself before now. Her social ineptitude had not helped to bolster her self-esteem, but he could be right. She might have things to discover about herself. If he was taking on things he found unpleasant in order to gain what he wanted, then she should be prepared to do the same.

  Excitement swirled through her, a low hum of awareness.

  “Times are changing,” Wellington said. “The world will never be the same again. A generation has grown up knowing nothing but war. While we will never be clear of conflict, we can work to prevent anything so cataclysmic happening again. Your work in the field of surgery is part of it.”

  “You are going into politics,” she said.

  “I never left,” Wellington said heavily. “After Vienna, I’m returning to London. I need all the allies I can get. So, Will, I’m asking you to make the greatest sacrifice. Take up the position you were born into. It’s time.”

  Never one to belabor the point, the duke bowed to her, shook Will’s hand again and left.

  Will faced her. “You went to him?”

  How had he worked that out? She faltered, her newfound courage dissipating as if it had never been. Except it left a trace behind, a reminder of the world she could create, if she took her fate into her hands. “Yes, I did.” She clasped her hands together until her knuckles turned white.

  Will sighed. “He’s a bulldog once he gets an idea into his head. He will never let go. My lady, we are going to London.”

  Chapter Seven

  No city in the world was as large as London. People thronged the streets everywhere Amelia looked, as full as Brussels was on the day after Waterloo. The Union flag was much in evidence. The flag was a new construct, since the United Kingdom had existed a bare thirteen years. Its garish red, white and blue decorated every inn, every shop and not a few
private residences.

  They drove from the docks, where they’d landed in the country, to the house Will’s family owned in Berkeley Square. He had informed her the Earls of Rothwell used to have a large mansion by the river, but they’d sold that for a considerable profit. The land was now occupied by a number of businesses. She gathered he had much more money than he had admitted to her.

  He had not completely forgiven her for going to Wellington, but he had recovered enough to speak to her rationally. Even if he had not come to her bed since that day. This time he’d used the preparation for the report as an excuse. Amelia had to admit he had a point. They gathered their notes together, packing them carefully, and made as many other annotations as they could.

  He had definitely decided against continuing their personal lives. When he’d asked her to be his partner, he had meant in a business sense. Their wedding night had been an aberration. Perhaps her joke about making the marriage legal had hit home, or perhaps she had disappointed him. Never one to repine, Amelia tried to make the best of what she had.

  She still had to become accustomed to people calling her “your ladyship” and “my lady.” The first time anyone had done so, she had to stop herself looking over her shoulder, to see which great lady was standing behind her.

  Her wardrobe was slightly augmented, but Will had advised her to wait until she reached London before she bought most of what she needed. “You can walk along Bond Street and buy most of what you will need in a morning,” he’d said.

  That sounded like something she could cope with.

  The luxurious carriage that had brought them from the docks stopped outside a large, white-stuccoed house in a gracious square. The portico was reached by three shallow steps.

  Normally Amelia would have leaped down as soon as the carriage stairs were unfolded and walked in, but it appeared that more ceremony was required of her.

  As the carriage came to a halt, the shiny black front door was flung wide. A man, imposing in his smart coat and breeches, stood waiting for them to alight.

  The footman let down the steps. Will got down first and then helped her to alight himself, retaining her hand in the crook of his arm as they ascended to the front door. The man bowed low. “Welcome, your lordship, my lady. I have ventured to have tea set in the parlor for you.”

  “Thank you,” Will said, as at ease as she was not. “I’ll take my wife there directly.”

  Not quite so directly. Once she had stepped into the beautiful, but intimidating hall with its white marble floor and staircase, Amelia found her new household waiting for her. The butler, whose name was Vernon, introduced them all one by one. She counted eight.

  “How many servants are here in total?” she asked, because she had seen no evidence of kitchen maids or other below-stairs staff.

  “Ten, my lady. I assume your maid and his lordship’s valet will make our contingent twelve.”

  Her first thought was no wonder many people preferred to address their servants by generic names, but then Amelia immediately dismissed the notion. She found the idea distasteful. She would learn all their names and discover what each did.

  She had never had a personal maid, much less commanded a staff of twelve. Whatever did they find to do all day?

  Vernon showed them to a pretty parlor at the back of the house, overlooking a surprisingly large garden. Roses nodded in the slight breeze. It looked idyllic.

  When she voiced the same sentiment to her husband, he laughed. Amelia had not heard him laugh for a long time. Was he getting better?

  The striped wallpaper of yellow and white complemented the furnishings, elegant sofas, a rug before the fireplace and a gilt clock resting on it. A maid served them tea and little cakes. When Amelia thanked her, she bobbed a curtsey and left the room.

  Portraits graced the walls, and one landscape of a great house surrounded by parkland. “That’s yours?”

  “It’s the main family seat, Rothwell Place,” he replied. He accepted his cup of tea, which she’d been half afraid to pour. The china was so delicate and so fine she wasn’t sure that it wouldn’t crack when she poured the hot liquid into it. “I’m sorry. I know this was not what you expected. It wasn’t what I’d planned, either, but if you insist on poking the dragon, this is what you may expect.”

  “Poking the dragon?”

  “In this case, Wellington. I had such different ideas, but I fear we would have come to this in the end.”

  Amelia swallowed. “You should not have married me.”

  “I should.” He took a deep draught of his tea, imbibing nearly half the cupful. “I doubt I could have borne anything this grandiose if I did not have a reminder of who I am.”

  So she was a living reminder of his humble life in the army. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. So she laughed, covering up her hurt in feigned merriment. “You are not likely to forget anything, with me close by.”

  “Indeed not.”

  Half an hour later, Amelia found herself in a bedroom she understood was to belong to her alone. And a maid, who had been engaged for her but she must decide for herself if she wanted to keep. Steinman was tall, as thin as a beanpole and utterly terrifying. However, when Amelia talked to her, she found the maid totally au fait with fashion and with a good eye besides.

  She would visit Bond Street the next day. Get it over with.

  “Would your ladyship prefer a double ruffle or a single?”

  Amelia tried not to look helplessly at Steinman. Her opinion of her lady’s maid had gone through a complete reversal in the last twenty-four hours.

  What she’d taken for standoffishness was a reticence that bordered on obsession. The woman knew the right dressmakers and had made appointments with exactly the right people to get her mistress noticed. However, the designers had so far offered her nothing outre.

  Steinman would probably collect a fat gratuity from the people she took her to, but Amelia had no objection to that. Maids had to make a living, and Steinman had chosen well.

  At breakfast that morning, Will had bade her order a complete new wardrobe and to take her maid’s advice, adding that a good lady’s maid was worth her weight in gold.

  When she asked him what he was doing, he said he was attending the office of his man of business, but he said no more. For the first time since she’d met him, Amelia felt fobbed off, left out. A small hurt that brought her mood down. When she left the house, she wasn’t as happy as she’d been when she woke up and determinedly counted her blessings.

  She’d stared at the blue silk canopy over her bed, and one by one, deliberately went over what she had to be thankful for. Now she was not so thankful. She had taken a step she could not undo, and she wasn’t sure she wanted the turn her life had taken. But she had nobody to discuss it with. She’d never been close to her sisters, and her mother was too anxious to get her married off to discuss anything else with her.

  At first Amelia had enjoyed her visit to the dressmaker, even though she had to wear one of her old gowns. When they’d entered the shop, the serving-woman came forward and went straight to her maid, who was dressed much better than Amelia was.

  The hem of Amelia’s gown had caught on something in the past and she’d repaired it with the only thread she had, brown. She had never been more aware of the brown thread as when she walked into this exquisitely furnished shop with its fashionably dressed clientele.

  After Steinman smoothly introduced her, the dressmaker, Madame Rosalier, had taken her into a private room, where Amelia had disclosed that she needed a complete new wardrobe. Once Madame had learned that, she was all smiles.

  Amelia wasn’t so virtuous that she could not enjoy spending a great deal of money on adornments and beautiful clothes. For most of her young girlhood, she’d longed for just the items that were placed in front of her.

  Madame showed her drawings and engravings of walking dresses, carriage dresses, pelisses, evening gowns, dinner gowns, morning gowns, until Amelia’s head spun. Then she
brought the fabrics in, rolls of the stuff, and threw them over Amelia’s shoulders to demonstrate the drape and if the color became her.

  After that, she brought in braids, ribbons and trims. Reminded that not so long ago she’d had to save her pin money to afford new hair ribbons, Amelia set to choosing. However, her faculties of discrimination seemed to leave her.

  Madame Rosalier took pity on her. “I can use the trim in the engravings, ma’am, if you wish. If I may say so, your choice of color is excellent. You do not have to stay with white and pastels, which young ladies are expected to.”

  Amelia grimaced. “Such shades never helped me.” Her coloring was too nondescript and her complexion too yellow to suit pastels. As a married woman, she had more choice.

  “I may have something for you to wear now, my lady.”

  She still had to get used to that title referring to her and not her mother.

  “I have a walking dress which I created for a client who now finds that she is unable to take it. It should be your size, and I can make any small adjustments that might be needed. Should I send for it?”

  So when she finally left the shop, Amelia was much better dressed than when she’d entered it. She had a dark green walking dress, ankle-length and decorated with black Russian braid. A distinctive shade, smart rather than spectacular, and exactly the kind of style she would have chosen.

  But she had not finished. The milliner’s came next.

  Amelia truly had not believed shopping could be so tiring, but making so many choices did prove wearing on her. Perhaps she had not recovered from six years following the drum.

  After that, they dropped in on the cobbler to have her feet measured for more shoes than she would ever need, and then on to the draper’s to buy underwear and nightwear. When Steinman announced the latter, she sighed.

  “Could you arrange that by yourself? Stockings, gloves, underwear, stays?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” At least her maid had stopped my ladying her.