by Mary Balogh
Finally, at some time during the evening, one of John Waldane’s friends came to relieve him, and Gervase set both hands on his hips and stretched his back and rolled his shoulder muscles. It was strange how quickly one’s eyes and ears could become accustomed to such sights and sounds and one’s nose to such smells. It had not even occurred to him after the first few moments to feel squeamish.
Lady Morgan Bedwyn, looking dirtier and more disheveled than ever, was kneeling beside a grizzled sergeant in rifle green, tying an arm sling in a firm knot behind his neck while saying something that made the man laugh gruffly.
Gervase approached her and waited until she had finished and got to her feet.
“Chérie,” he said, “it is time that you rested. Allow me to escort you home to the Rue de Bellevue.”
But she shook her head. “I cannot go back there until I have heard some definite news,” she said. “That sergeant”—she indicated the man she had just tended—“told me that Lord Uxbridge led a massive cavalry charge this afternoon, and they swept aside all in their path and set the French to rout. But they kept going for too long, beyond enemy lines, and got cut down in their turn. He does not know what the casualties were.”
For a moment her face threatened to crumple, but she pulled herself together and smiled instead.
“None of them has come back here yet,” she said. “I suppose that is good news. No one knows if the battle is won or lost. But it will be dark soon. They cannot fight after dark, can they?”
“You need some rest,” he told her firmly. “You will be no good to anyone if you push yourself too far.”
“Mrs. Clark has opened her house to the wounded,” she said. “We have been meaning to go there for the past hour, but there always seems one more thing to do. The house is ready, though. I have agreed to take the night shift. I would not be able to sleep anyway.” She tipped her head from side to side as she spoke, and half closed her eyes.
Gervase set his hands on her shoulders and turned her to face away from him. He massaged her shoulders and neck muscles with his thumbs and fingers until she sighed and dropped her head forward.
“Alleyne has not come back yet,” she said. “He told me he would be back before nightfall. That is now. He will surely be here soon.”
“Let me take you to Mrs. Clark’s,” he suggested. “Someone can direct your brother there. If there are not many wounded there yet or if there is plenty of help, perhaps you can snatch a short rest. Or a cup of tea at the very least.”
“That sounds like heaven,” she admitted.
“Or a wash,” he said.
She looked down at herself ruefully. “This is one of my smartest dresses,” she said. “Or was. I doubt I will be able to wear it again—or want to.”
He offered her his arm and she took it. It was difficult now to remember how she had looked to him the first time he set eyes on her—breathtakingly lovely but haughty and aristocratic too. She had looked to him rather like a spoiled child. It was shameful to remember that he had sought an acquaintance with her only because she was Bewcastle’s sister—as if she could not possibly have any identity of her own.
“I am glad I am still in Brussels,” she said. “I am glad I have seen what I have seen today. Most of all I am glad that I have been able in some way to make myself useful. But how pointless it all is. If we lose this battle, what will have been the point of it all? If we win, what will have been the point for all the French dead and wounded? I cannot make any distinction, can you? The French and the English and Germans and Belgians and Dutch—they are all foolish, brave men. Though perhaps not so very foolish. It is not they, after all, who have decided to fight this battle today. It is their leaders. I am sorry. I have harped on this theme before in your company. I must let it go and simply face the reality of what has happened and is happening.”
He set a hand over hers on his arm.
“I will, if I may,” he said, “take word of your whereabouts to the Countess of Caddick.”
“Oh, yes, please,” she said. “It is remiss of me not to have thought of that for myself.”
The Caddicks, he thought uncharitably, deserved to be strung up by their thumbs. Had they made no effort all day to discover where she was? And why had they not insisted days ago that she leave Brussels even if they were unwilling to go themselves?
“It will be my pleasure, chérie,” he told her.
“Your mother is French,” she said. “Do you ever find that your sympathies lie with her countrymen, Lord Rosthorn?”
“I do,” he said, “though I do not often say so aloud to an Englishman or an Englishwoman. But my father was English, you see. I have loyalties to both countries, which is perhaps why I have never felt any great inclination to become a military officer myself.”
She looked gravely up at him, but she did not ask any more questions. She stopped outside the house that must be Mrs. Clark’s and turned to thank him for escorting her. The doors of the house, he noticed, were wide open, the building full of light. She would stay up all night doing what she could to make the wounded comfortable, ensuring that those who had survived the battlefield would not now die of fever or neglect.
He took both her hands in his, bowed over them, and raised them one at a time to his lips.
“Go on in, then, chérie,” he said. “I will call in the morning to make sure that you are resting.”
“Thank you,” she said. “What will you be doing tonight, Lord Rosthorn?”
“Returning to the gates,” he said. “Perhaps even riding a little way into the forest. It is getting dark. The guns have stopped, as you may have noticed. The battle will have been won or lost. Or perhaps it is in a stalemate and will resume on the morrow.”
“If you happen to see Alleyne,” she asked him, “will you direct him here, Lord Rosthorn? And if you have word of—of anyone else, will you let us know here?”
He was not sure if she meant Captain Lord Gordon specifically or all the Guards of her acquaintance generally. But she might have been moping over them all day at Caddick’s house on the Rue de Bellevue. Instead she had spent the day out on the streets tending the wounded, keeping her own feelings under control and deeply hidden. But the feelings, the raw pain of worry, were there, he knew.
“I will, chérie,” he said, and watched her until she was inside the house before turning away in the direction of the Rue de Bellevue. He found the countess so distraught over the lack of news of her son that it seemed to Gervase she had not even noticed that her charge had not returned home since morning.
“She is with Mrs. Clark, is she, Lord Rosthorn?” she said after he had given his message. “A good sort of woman though the major might have done better for himself. I daresay she and Lady Morgan have been holding each other’s hand all day and comforting each other.”
Gervase did not explain what the ladies had been doing. He took his leave and walked to the stable where his horse was kept and rode out for a few miles to the south of the city even though the heavy dusk had turned almost to darkness.
The news he heard as he went was progressively more encouraging. The battle had been won, it would seem, though no one appeared quite certain. The Prussians had come late to reinforce the hard-pressed British and Allied forces, and the French had been routed. The Allies were going after them and were prepared to chase them all the way to Paris if necessary.
Gervase might have ridden farther for more definite news, but as he made his slow way past cart upon cart of the wounded, he spotted a bier being carried by two soldiers—a wounded officer occupied it, he guessed. He could see the Guards uniform of the stricken man even in the darkness and rode closer.
“Who?” he asked.
“Captain Lord Gordon, sir,” one of the men said. “Wounded in the cavalry charge this afternoon but only recently found.”
“Badly wounded?” Gervase asked.
But the captain was conscious and could answer for himself.
“A damned broken leg
,” he said. “It is you, is it, Rosthorn? If I could have pulled my foot free of the stirrup I would have taken no harm, and I would have slashed my way through a few more of the Frogs. But my horse fell on me and I had to play dead until the action was all over.”
He set one hand over his eyes.
“The battle is over, then?” Gervase asked.
“By Jove, yes,” Gordon said. “We broke the back of their attack, and after that it was just a matter of time.” He swore suddenly and viciously at the bearers of his bier, one of whom had just stumbled over a stone.
“Bastards! Oafs!” he said in conclusion. “No one seems to understand the extent of my pain. Would you be a good fellow, Rosthorn, and ride on ahead to warn my mother that I am coming and to make sure my father summons the best physician in Brussels?”
“What do you know of the fate of the rest of the Life Guards?” Gervase asked. But he had to wait awhile for his answer as Gordon ground his teeth against a spasm of pain.
“Too many of us died,” he said. “The Life Guards will never be quite the same. But we saved Europe and England from Bonaparte.”
“Major Clark?” Gervase asked.
“Oh, he lives,” Captain Gordon assured him. “He came to talk to me when they were loading me up. He is pushing on to Paris with the rest of the army. Lucky bastard.”
“I’ll ride back to Brussels, then,” Gervase assured him.
He went first to the Rue de Bellevue to assure the Earl and Countess of Caddick that their son was alive though hurt. But he did not wait for Gordon to arrive or offer to go in search of a physician. He rode over to Mrs. Clark’s house instead.
A maid answered his knock on the door. He could see even before he stepped inside that every available space was being used for the wounded. There were three pallets in the small hallway alone.
Lady Morgan herself came hurrying out of an inner room less than a minute after the maid had disappeared. She was looking drawn and tired, but she had washed her face and brushed her hair and still bore herself with proud, upright carriage.
“The battle is over and was a victory for the Allies,” he told her without preamble. “Major Clark is safe, and Captain Gordon is being carried back home, alive but with a broken leg. My guess is that he will live and make a full recovery.”
He watched her eyes grow huge and her teeth clamp onto her lower lip. Then she hurried toward him, stepping around one pallet as she came, held out her hands to him, and stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.
“Thank you for bringing the news,” she said, squeezing his hands. “Thank you, Lord Rosthorn. You are very kind. And Alleyne?”
“I did not see him or hear anything of him,” he said regretfully. “But he will surely be back tomorrow or, more probably, later tonight.”
“Yes,” she said. “I suppose so.”
One of the men in the hall coughed and groaned and called out. Lady Morgan pulled her hands free and bent over his pallet without further ado.
Mrs. Clark, he could see, was hurrying down the stairs, her eyes on him, one hand pressed to her throat.
“Your husband is safe, ma’am, and the battle is won,” Gervase told her.
CHAPTER VII
THERE WAS NOWHERE FOR MORGAN TO SLEEP AT Mrs. Clark’s when she was relieved of her night duty early the next morning, though she would have stayed close if she could. However, she was also eager to hurry back to the house on the Rue de Bellevue. Captain Lord Gordon would be there. Perhaps he would have more news of the battle and of the other officers she knew. At the same time, she dreaded meeting him again. Would he try to hold her to the promises he thought she had made at the Richmond ball? Or would he be embarrassed by the memories and be as ready to forget as she?
The Earl of Caddick and Rosamond were at breakfast. The latter got to her feet when she saw Morgan, hugged her tightly, and burst into tears.
“The battle was won,” she said when she could, “but we do not know yet who lived and who died. Ambrose lives. Mama has been up all night with him and is even now in his bedchamber.”
“His leg?” Morgan asked, genuinely concerned for him. There had been so many amputations . . .
“It is broken in two places,” the earl told her. “It got caught beneath his horse when he fell. But they were clean breaks and the leg did not have to be sawn off. It has been set, and the physician believes he will make a full recovery and not even have a permanent limp.”
Morgan sighed aloud with relief and Rosamond hugged her again and shed a few more tears.
“I am dreadfully sorry that I prevented everyone’s leaving for safety a few days ago,” she said. “You must have been in a panic, Morgan. But all has turned out for the best, after all, has it not? There is no more threat to Brussels, and we have Ambrose here with us instead of in a field hospital somewhere with hundreds of others. I cannot even bear the thought of it, can you?”
Morgan shook her head.
“We are going to take him home to England,” Rosamond told her. “Mama wants to have him tended by our own physician in London. Papa has procured two carriages and we are to leave early in the morning. Is not that delightful news?”
Morgan nodded.
“You look tired, Lady Morgan,” the earl observed. “The worry, I daresay. But all has ended well.”
Rosamond, her own news exhausted, took a step back and appeared to notice her friend’s less than pristine appearance for the first time.
“There is blood on your dress,” she said. “Whatever have you done to hurt yourself, Morgan? Do come and sit down. I thought you stayed at Mrs. Clark’s last night.”
“I did.” Morgan sank down onto the chair a servant pulled out hastily from the table. “I tended the wounded there. There are so many, Rosamond—hundreds upon hundreds. I daresay there are a thousand more still on the battlefield or on the road back to Brussels. There are twenty at Mrs. Clark’s alone. There were twenty-one, but one died in the night. I have been relieved for a few hours, but I must go back before noon. There is so much to do and so few hands.”
Rosamond sat on the chair beside hers and gazed at her in wide-eyed fascination.
“Tending the wounded?” she said. “How splendidly brave of you. I’ll come with you when you return even though just the sight of the blood on your dress makes me feel faint. I have almost completely recovered from my migraine.”
“You will not go anywhere, miss,” her father said firmly. “The battle may be over, but the streets will be filled with all sorts of ruffians today. You will remain indoors where your mama and I can keep an eye on you. I have no doubt Lady Caddick will require the same of you, Lady Morgan. I would have expected Mrs. Clark to behave more responsibly.”
Lady Caddick herself arrived on the scene at that moment. She looked haggard, but as her eyes fell upon Morgan, they lit up with happiness.
“Wonderful news, my dear Lady Morgan!” she exclaimed. “I daresay you have heard that the French have been soundly beaten. Gordon has become a great hero. He is dreadfully wounded, the poor boy, but he is suffering bravely—and gladly too. His wounds are no more than badges of honor, he tells me. Can you imagine such nobility of mind?”
“I am very relieved that he is safe, ma’am,” Morgan assured her.
“We will be taking my boy back to England tomorrow,” Lady Caddick said. “You will be delighted to return to the bosom of your family, Lady Morgan.”
“Did Alleyne call here last evening?” Morgan asked.
“Lord Alleyne Bedwyn?” the countess said. “I do not believe so. Did he, Caddick?”
The earl grunted, a sound Morgan interpreted as a negative. “Like you,” he told his wife, “Lady Morgan has been up all night. I would suggest toast and tea for both of you and retirement to your beds. Rosamond will sit with Gordon.”
“He has just taken another dose of laudanum,” the countess explained, seating herself at the table, “and will sleep for a while, I daresay. He will certainly wish to see you when he awakes, Lady
Morgan. He spoke of you several times during the night. I must warn you, though, that you may find the sight of him too much for your tender sensibilities. He has numerous other wounds besides his broken leg.”
Morgan’s heart sank—he had spoken of her. He would wish to see her. But at least he was safe. What about Alleyne? And there were twenty men at Mrs. Clark’s who all needed almost constant tending. Many of their lives hung in the balance. More than anything else at that moment, though, she needed to sleep. She was silently thankful that Lord Gordon had taken laudanum and was in no condition to receive a visitor. Later she would have to see him—and later too she would deal with the prospect of going back home and abandoning all the misery here.
She ate a slice of toast and drank a cup of tea, more because she felt she ought than because she was hungry. Rosamond took her arm then and led her up to her room. She kissed Morgan’s cheek before leaving.
“I am so very proud of you,” she said, “for tending the wounded. Oh, Morgan, I do so hope we will be sisters.”
Morgan smiled wanly as she went into her room and closed the door behind her. Her maid helped her off with her dress and she sank onto her bed and closed her eyes. But just before she drifted off to sleep, she remembered something.
She had kissed the Earl of Rosthorn on the cheek last evening. Not because they had been flirting or dallying. Not because he had challenged her or because she had felt challenged. But because he had shown compassion for her and for Mrs. Clark. Because he had been at the Namur Gates for hours earlier in the day, trying to make sure that all the wounded had somewhere to go to recover and be comfortable.
Because she had felt his kindness.
Because he had somehow been transformed in her eyes from a potentially dangerous rake whose flirtations it had been a challenge to resist to a friend.
Was that a fanciful thought?