by Julie Rowe
Jude glanced at the other nurses, but they’d all retreated as far from the officers as they could. Fear had them grouped together like a herd of deer cornered by a pack of dogs.
They would not fare well if the officers began questioning them. From a young age she’d been taught it was her station, her responsibility to step forward, to place herself between her people and those who would oppress them.
She lifted her chin, dusted off her soiled apron and walked towards the knot of men surveying the room.
“Good afternoon, sirs,” she said with a respectful nod. “How can we help you?”
“Nurse,” one of the leading officers said, not the best dressed one, but not an enlisted soldier either. “How long have these men been here like this?”
“Many have arrived within the hour, sir. We try to get to them quickly as possible, but we’ve only got two surgeons and a half dozen nurses.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes, sir.” Her lips pursed with restrained anger. “Unfortunately. Surgeons are hard to come by because of all the fighting, and few women can afford to leave their children with their men off to war.”
He looked at the huddle of nurses across the room. “You’re here.”
“My parents were killed by artillery fire six months ago. I have no other place. The other nurses here are in a similar situation. Though a couple have husbands serving in the German army now.” She’d given the same story so many times she half believed it herself. She cleared her throat. “Would you care to speak to some of our wounded? It would cheer them.”
The spokesman glanced at one of his companions, a man whose chest was covered in medals. The decorated man nodded sharply. “The general’s nephew is supposed to be here. He wanted to check on him.”
“Of course. The young man’s name?”
“Hanz Glimmerman.”
Jude’s brows drew close. The name sounded familiar. “I believe he came in yesterday and went to surgery several hours ago. This way, please.” She turned on her heel, motioned for Michael to stay where he was and led the general towards the other side of the room. She made sure to walk past as many wounded men as possible.
She was of the opinion that generals, no matter which side they were on, needed to see the human cost of their wars. Perhaps if they had the stench of rotting flesh constantly assaulting their noses, they’d make peace instead.
The general found his nephew and crouched down to speak to the young man. He’d been lucky. He’d suffered a leg and hip injury, but all the shrapnel had been removed and he’d keep the limb.
She turned to give them some time to talk and returned to where Michael waited. “You may assist me.”
He came to attention as if she were a superior officer. “Yes, ma’am.”
Kneeling next to a soldier she’d not yet assessed, she watched the German officers move about the room, stopping to speak to a man here or there. The one who’d spoken to her, though, he stayed close and watched her.
She ignored him. The wounds of the soldier before her were superficial, but all on his face, as if something had blown up very close to his head.
“How did this happen?” she asked as she used a cloth to clean the dirt and blood off his head and neck. She used a pair of tweezers to pick out the tiny pieces of shrapnel imbedded in his skin. She counted seventeen different wounds.
“I was about to climb out of the trench when a piece of artillery hit a few feet in front of me. The last thing I remember is covering my eyes.”
“It’s a good thing you did or you would have lost them.”
He swallowed hard. “It might have been better if I had.”
She wanted to reassure him, tell him his face would heal, but she couldn’t lie. He would heal, but he’d be horribly scarred.
“Bah,” Michael said, crouching next to her. “An honourable woman cares about the condition of your heart, not the perfection of your face.”
Jude stared, her eyes and jaw wide. She couldn’t help it. He’d repeated almost word for word a statement she’d made to him over two years earlier. He’d been slashed with a knife along his jawline. At the time, it looked as if it would leave a thick scar, and he’d made a joke about his lack of prospects in making a good marriage. She’d bravely declared her feelings, but he’d asserted that she had a schoolgirl’s crush on him. Then, as gently as anyone could manage, he told her his love was reserved for no woman, but rather to his duty.
The scar on his face was healed and gave him a rakish look.
Her scars went much deeper.
“Where can I find such a paragon?” the soldier asked Michael.
He winked. “Usually right under your nose.” His glance was warm, and she snorted with unladylike fervour, resisting the temptation to thump him. What did he think he was doing flirting so outrageously with her in front of this poor soldier and a watchful German officer?
The young man chuckled.
She rolled her eyes, continued to clean his wounds and muttered, “Men.”
Michael turned to her, tilting his head. “You don’t agree?”
She wasn’t falling for Michael’s innocent act. “You’re not as clever as you think you are, and a smart woman will figure that out quick enough.”
He sighed with theatrical zeal. “She didn’t have to. My surly behaviour drove her away. Let my misfortune instruct you,” he said to the soldier. “Don’t run off a woman who offers genuine care and concern. Women of that type are rare and to be treasured.”
Lips pressed tight together, Jude stood and walked to the alcove, unwilling to hear another word. She’d thought this kind of subtle mocking beneath him. Why was he baiting her?
She was reaching high above her head for a stack of bandages when a male body crowded her from behind. Jude sucked in a shocked breath and was about to scream when a hand closed over her mouth and she was spun around.
Michael. The steel that had infused her limbs at being grabbed ebbed away just as quickly. He was no threat, at least not a physical one.
He stared at her, his gaze heavy and unrelenting. “Two years ago I threw your affections away. I was a fool.” The words were spoken low and in a dark tone she’d never heard from him before.
“What?” He couldn’t mean he regretted it. He’d been so completely certain, his life planned out, his purpose clear. She’d searched for evidence of any hesitation, any chance at all he might change his mind and welcome her feelings. But she’d found none.
As a member of the Belgian royal family with a father in the British military, she’d become an unofficial liaison between Belgium and England. She’d had years of experience at reading expressions. She knew Michael’s face better than anyone else’s. She’d studied it long enough, and she knew one thing for certain.
He had not loved her then.
He cupped her cheek with one hand and regarded her with an expression she’d only ever seen a handful of times, but never aimed at her. Regret. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t under—”
“Don’t hate me,” he said, his voice a pale shade between them. “That officer is watching.”
It was the only warning she got.
His lips came down on hers as if he’d been starving for a taste of them. They pressed, moved, teased and came back again for more. His hands pulled her close.
And she let him.
She froze, uncertain, unprepared and unaware a man’s kiss could so easily lead a woman astray. She tried to pull away, but his other arm came around her back and pressed her to him.
She could feel every difference between her body and his. Every shocking one. Her lips opened to protest—they were in a public place for goodness’ sake—but she got no words out. He took them from her in a wicked twist of his lips. His tongue touched hers, tasted the inside of her mouth, and the sensation was so surprising, so shocking and pleasurable she dropped the bandages and grabbed the front of his coat.
He moaned and the hand behind her head tightened fo
r a moment. Then he suddenly pulled away, jerking out of her grip.
His face was ruddy, his jaw set and his eyes, they almost scared her. The passion in them so raw, hot and sharp.
She realised the officer she’d spoken to earlier was yelling at Michael, was, in fact, hauling him away, pushing him ahead and through the ballroom door.
Jude stared after them, one trembling hand covering her mouth, swollen and sensitive from Michael’s kiss.
A couple of her suitors had kissed her, but they’d left her unmoved, cold.
She felt anything but cold now.
The general walked up and put a hand out, but she shrank in on herself and he let his arm drop. He looked at her with pity in his eyes. “Are you all right, Nurse?”
She nodded, though her head moved in a jerky motion that betrayed her real state. “I’m—I’ve never been treated to such behaviour before.” She glanced at her shaking hands. “Perhaps a cup of tea will settle me.”
The general’s nostrils flared. “Never fear, that man will be arrested and tried for—”
“No!” She tried to control her tone. It wouldn’t do to let anyone know how worried she was for Michael. “Please, sir, no. He’s a wounded soldier who has seen too much. Please,” she said again, “just let him go back to his duty.”
“I don’t think—”
Jude interrupted the general a second time. “The trenches are punishment enough.”
He cleared his throat, measuring her with eyes that saw perhaps more than she thought. “As you wish.” He inclined his head respectfully, turned with military precision and left, the rest of his retinue behind him.
Jude followed them out the double doors, straining to see where Michael had been taken, but he wasn’t in the hall. Voices drifted up from the grand foyer and she hurried to the rail to look down.
Michael stood near the main palace entrance, guarded by two armed soldiers. The general spoke in low tones to the officer who’d taken Michael away. Was the general keeping his word? Would Michael escape immediate danger only to get sent back to the trenches to fight for his enemy? Hands clutching the wood beneath her fingers, she prayed he’d look up.
He did, his gaze hot, his mouth set in determined lines.
She whispered, “I’m sorry,” hoping he’d understand. Hoping he had a plan to escape.
He mouthed one word to her. Only one.
* * *
Tonight.
He would wait no longer than that. Jude couldn’t afford to linger. It was only a matter of time before the Germans found her. He didn’t care what argument she came up with, she was going back to England. The Germans knew she was in the city. They’d begun a quiet search of the homes of her family’s friends and wealthy members of Belgian society. Already they’d found two of her cousins and put them under house arrest.
But she was the one they wanted. The one person still in Belgium who could give the Germans the leverage they craved. Related by blood to the Belgium nobility, she was also the daughter of one of King George’s closest advisors, a colonel in the British Expeditionary Force.
Rumour said the Germans wanted to use her to infiltrate the British military with spies, though it was more likely that they wanted to compromise her father’s position as a royal advisor on military matters.
Her father was a tactical genius. One the king couldn’t afford to lose.
Michael’s orders didn’t only come from Jude’s father, they also came from the king. Get her out of Belgium before it was too late.
He was marched out of the palace and made to wait. Before he could sit, the German officer struck him.
Michael didn’t resist.
“Your behaviour was disgusting. You frightened that poor woman half to death.”
He didn’t have to work hard to make himself blush. “Yes, sir.”
“Sit.”
He did as ordered.
The officer leaned forward. “Why did you do it?”
Michael studied his boots. “I have no excuse.”
“How long have you been fighting on the front line?”
“Two months, sir.”
“First pretty thing you’ve seen since before that, was she?”
“Yes, sir.”
The officer grunted. “You’re fortunate she’s Belgian and not German. As it is, your punishment is to return to your duty in the trenches.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Keep your hands to yourself next time.” The officer paused. “If you survive to a next time.”
Chapter Three
Jude returned to the ballroom. For a moment the sight of row upon row of bodies looked like graves abandoned before anyone had time to cover them with earth. Then the moans, calls for help and the slow shuffle of men looking for a place to sit or lie down wiped the mirage away.
So much pain and sorrow, and she knew of only one way to cure it. With clean water, soap, bandages and care. Most of the men were covered in dirt, body lice and blood. Could a bathing area be arranged? Without it infections could take hold in some and spread to others.
She spoke with the nurses, but it wasn’t hard to convince them of the need for bathing their charges. The two surgeons flat-out refused to attempt surgery on men so dirty infection was a foregone conclusion. They suggested she ask for help from the officers who had taken over the main floor of the palace, then went to bed to get enough rest to begin surgery in a few hours. Jude sent two of the nurses off as well, while the other four began the task of deciding whose wounds were in need of care, whose could wait and who wasn’t likely to live no matter what they did.
In the kitchen, a couple of junior nurses, untrained except for the most basic tasks, were preparing a watery soup. For some of the men, it was all they could keep down. Others, not even that. Jude instructed them to boil as much water for washing as they could.
She found a cluster of officers in the palace library, looking over a large map.
“What is it?” the general asked, waving the soldiers guarding the door away and signalling her to approach.
“Sir, the surgeons request the help of a few men to assist us bathing the wounded. We are woefully short of hands and may lose some to infection.”
He stared at his map absently and rubbed his chin. “Yes, I think I can spare a squad.”
“Thank you, sir.” She curtsied. Darting a glance at the map, she recognised trench lines and battle positions. “The surgeons also wanted to know if we should prepare for any more wounded. We are all but overwhelmed.”
“There shouldn’t be any significant numbers for the next fi—several days. Will that be enough time for you to prepare for another wave?”
She nodded. “Yes, sir. That should be adequate.” Dipping into another curtsy, she hurried back to the surgical suite to inform the nurses, her heart racing.
Five days. He’d almost said it, she was sure. Her information was correct, then. She had five days to stop a massacre, to somehow get all the information she’d gleaned, either by overhearing or outright snooping, to the British. And rescue a certain British officer masquerading as a German infantryman.
She needed a bloody miracle. Several of them. But so far during this war, miracles had been few and far between. There was nothing she could do now, in fact it would be better if she kept busy completing her tasks until most were asleep.
A squad of soldier-helpers arrived faster than anticipated. It took hours to attend to every wounded man, but finally it was done as late evening fell. Every man had been given a sponge bath and their wounds assessed by either a nurse or surgeon. It would have taken days without the assistance of the soldiers, a fact that left Jude genuinely grateful. Whatever else she was, she was also a nurse. She and the other Red Cross nurses thanked every one of the soldiers before they left.
Exhaustion nibbled at her nose and fingertips, turning them cold. She desperately wanted to sit or lie down, but there was still work to do, patients to treat and wounds to bind. At least the wounded were more comfo
rtable now. She’d suggested a rating system to make it easier to identify the most urgent cases. A simple coloured bit of yarn tied to the wrist of each man determined if he needed to be dealt with immediately, soon or if he could wait. A system that the surgeons said made getting the men through surgery much faster. No time was wasted between cases deciding who was next.
Finally, after Jude stumbled for the fifth time in as many minutes, the chief surgeon sent her off to sleep. She agreed, needing at least a few hours of rest before she could do anything else.
The nurses slept at the other end of the palace in what used to be the royal nursery. Some of her fondest memories were of playing there as a child whenever her parents brought her to visit her cousins. The room had looked a lot different then—sunny, filled with elegant child-sized furnishings, the walls covered with bright paintings. Now, the walls were stripped bare of all decoration and the only furniture was several vacant cots and empty medical supply crates. Her cousins were now either in hiding or exile, but Jude could almost hear them, their voices excited and laughter infectious.
How odd that she should be here. A palace for royals now serving the machines of war.
She turned and walked down the hall to a cloakroom where her own cot was located. Removing her soiled apron, she placed it on the floor next to her shoes, then lay down and blew out the candle, leaving her alone with her memories and her tears.
Seeing Michael again had been a shock. Despite the uniform he wore, he looked healthy and certainly seemed to know what he was doing. Not that he’d given her any clue as to the real reason he was here. She hadn’t needed his warning about the Germans—she knew very well that they were looking for her.
If only she’d had some warning. She’d never have allowed him to kiss her if she hadn’t been so surprised and worried.
His kiss. She shivered at the memory of the texture of his lips, soft yet commanding, the decadent taste of his tongue and the feel of his strong hands on her. It made her want things she could never have, things that would only make her loneliness worse.