An Independent Miss

by Becca St. John

  “Rupert can go. I will stay with you.”

  If he wanted her help, it would have been a valiant offer. Instead, it annoyed.

  He sent another look at Upton.

  “Come on, Jane.” Rupert tugged her toward the house. “You’ve been filling your dance card. Better go find the rascal who signed his toes away for this one.”

  Andover scanned the garden paths, stepped down toward them, when he saw Robbie pull Felicity around the house but not onto a path that would take them through shrubbery or flower beds, or to any kind of privacy. It was the path around to the back of the house and the carriage yard.

  He quickened his step, loath to run, lest it start a rampage of speculation. He followed their path, in time to see them get into a hansom cab.

  They were leaving.

  ****

  Bea was late to the ball, which was only to be expected. She would have been on time, if she had arrived with Lord Upton, but her father refused to attend and her mother wanted her daughter as companion. Her mother would be late, because her mother was always late, so she turned down Lord Upton’s escort.

  Late enough to be on time with everyone else. It took nearly an hour for their carriage to pull up to the front of their destination.

  She waited impatiently for the footman to open the carriage door and let the steps down. If they weren’t too late, Lord Upton would wait for her to arrive. She had promised him a dance. She had also promised they would be far earlier.

  The stair lowered. Bea started to step out, felt a tug at the same moment she heard a rip and looked down.

  “Oh dear, Beatrice, I’ve stepped on your gown.” Her mother bent over the damage.

  “Please, Mother,” Bea pleaded. “I will fix it inside.”

  “Wait,” her mother ordered, and fussed with the feather in Bea’s hair.

  Finally, Bea stepped down, just as Lord Upton walked out the door with Lord Andover close behind.

  “Bea? Is that you?” He called and waved as he started her way, but Lord Andover grabbed his arm, as impatient as Bea felt.

  Upton said something to Andover, then hurried down the stairs.

  “We were delayed,” she explained, comforted to see his disappointment.

  “And we are off.” He offered a gallant bow to Bea’s mother. “Lady Redmond.”

  “Lord Upton.” She took Bea’s arm. “Come along, Beatrice.” Suddenly in a hurry to get to the ball.

  Bea hesitated. “Go ahead, Mother, I will join you in a moment.”

  “I will wait at the top of the stairs, where I can see you,” Lady Redmond announced, managing to be both formidable and consenting.

  “It’s your cousin.” Andover told her. “She has left with some fellow, Robbie Marshall. Do you know where they might have gone?”

  “Robbie Marshall? He’s a family friend, a neighbor. I didn’t even know he was in town. His brother was injured on the continent, died.”

  “No, he didn’t; at least he was still alive yesterday. Do you know where they might stay in town?”

  “No.” Bea shook her head, bewildered. “Robbie is Thomas’s friend. I can’t imagine Felicity leaving with him.”

  “Well, she did,” Rupert snapped, softening his tone for her as he explained. “We aren’t certain Felicity wanted to go.”

  “I wouldn’t worry,” Bea defended. “If Felicity left with him, she had a good reason.” She pulled her shawl close. “Actually, if Robbie is here and, as you say, Jack is still with us, then Felicity is helping to take care of him. As I said, they have been friends of the family for donkey years.”

  “Who would know where they are? Do you have any idea?”

  “Beatrice!” Her mother called from the stairs.

  “Yes, Mother, I’m coming,” she answered, before turning back to the men. “I don’t know, and I don’t know anyone who would.”

  With one last longing look at Upton, she bade the gentlemen a good evening and hurried after her mother.

  ****

  The cab jostled, as it hurried through the streets.

  “Is he that much worse from this afternoon? I thought he had stabilized,” Felicity fretted. “And even if he didn’t, it’s not appropriate for me to intrude, not now. Your parents will want privacy,” Felicity argued.

  “He has asked for you.”

  She sat back and considered that. “He asked for me?” She watched Robbie, unease seeping through her, even with a lifetime of memories urging her to trust him. “I can’t imagine why.”

  Fierce, Robbie turned, grabbed her shoulders. She shrieked, then bit her lip, not wanting to enrage him further.

  “Of course he would ask for you!” He shook her. “He loves you, always has, just didn’t want you waiting about for him.”

  “Calm down, Robbie.” She raised her hands, gripped his forearms. “You’re hurting me. You don’t want Jack to think you’d hurt me now, do you?” She moved, pried his fingers from her shoulders.

  He let go, curved over, braced on his legs. “Mother and Father are with him now.”

  “How is he, Robbie? How has he worsened?”

  “I can’t change those damned things you have on his legs and I daren’t have Mother and Father look at what you’ve done.” He glared over his shoulder at her. “All this is breaking Mother’s heart.”

  “You’ve been a tremendous support to him, Robbie. And Matt.” Robbie snorted. “Where is Matt?”

  “I sent him on an errand.” Robbie flexed his fist. “It should have been me on that battle field. I was meant for action of that sort. Not Jack.”

  “Robbie.” She wrapped an arm around his shoulder. “It doesn’t make a difference. Not now.’

  “It does.” His voice was the bark of a wounded animal. “If he had been the elder, it would have been me in that bed.” He flung back, threw Felicity off. “He didn’t have a choice, but to go into the army. It was not something that suited his nature. He loves the land, he was never a fighter.”

  Felicity reached out again, clasped his arm. “You cannot fault fate. It was not his place to be born first.”

  “But why did it have to go this way? There I was jealous and curt with him because I wanted a commission, but Father refused. Instead, he forced Jack to it, when we all would have been better off with him heading the estate. He loved the land.”

  “Poor Robbie,” she soothed, breaking his reserve, breaking his resistance, so the tears could fall.

  “It isn’t fair.”

  “I know, Robbie. Life often isn’t fair, or it doesn’t seem so. But I wonder if those we lose are part of what makes us better.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  She sat back. “You are right.”

  He held his tears at bay, sat back tense and angry, as he watched the passing scenery.

  “I’ve sent Matt to get a vicar.”

  “Is he that bad, Robbie? Do you need last rites? I hadn’t…”

  Robbie wouldn’t look at her. “So you can marry.”

  “What?” she snapped. “I haven’t agreed to go along with your scheme, Robbie. Besides, no vicar will marry us without banns or a license.”

  “He deserves this much.”

  Wild in his grief, his guilt, blind to the fact a vicar would never marry them, not like this. Days in that ward, surrounded by pain, his own brother suffering, drove him over the edge.

  Crazed, but not dangerous.

  She would be safe at the home.

  Soon others would be about.

  She would be safe.

  Jack did not want to marry her.

  Robbie opened the door, jumped from the moving carriage as they pulled up to the home. His hair an untidy mess, beard unevenly trimmed, coat awry. So concerned with Jack, scrambling to think how he might have worsened enough to need her, Felicity failed to notice the state of Robbie. Truly mad with grief.

  Had Andover seen it?

  They walked up the stairs, his clasp tight enough to bruise, down a hall to the doorway of a r
oom with four beds, an awful stench, and moaning.

  If one of them worsened with the gangrene, they would all die of it. That was almost a certainty.

  In the midst of the shadowed room, in a lone circle of light, two people stood over a bed, their heads bowed.

  Robbie sobbed and crumpled, tears released in a torrent. His mother rushed to him, falling to her knees, holding him.

  “He is still with us, Robbie boy, he is still with us.”

  “Aye, waiting for you.” His father nodded at Felicity. “We don’t know how to tend to him and Robbie sent that Matt fellow off on some errand.”

  And there he was, alive and not-so-gray, their Jack, sitting up, exhausted with pain, but alive. He didn’t try to speak, but watched Felicity and his brother, the smile for one turning into a frown for the other.

  Mrs. Matthews helped Robbie stand, dusting him off as though she’d not been on the floor with him. “Everything is here,” she told Felicity, as she bustled about her son

  “Stop it,” he grumbled, but she just tsk’ed and urged him to sit in the one chair.

  “There’s a pouch and those—” she pointed at the box Felicity used for maggots, “—but we don’t know exactly how it’s done.”

  “Of course not.” Dressed in silk, pearls woven into her hair, Felicity tugged at the fingers of gloves that ran all the way to her upper arms. “I can tend to him.”

  “No, no, no.” Mrs. Marshall stopped her. “Don’t you fret now.”

  Mr. Marshall chimed in. “No need for you to worry. Robbie picked right when he chose this Matt fellow. He’s a good lad, been caring for all the men in these beds, doing the washes and all.”

  “He said you thought they might bring our Jack down if they worsened. So he’s helping them and all,” Mrs. Marshall explained.

  “Maggots!” Robbie snapped. No one paid him any heed but Jack, still frowning.

  A bit dazed, Felicity nodded, leaving Robbie to his mourning as she spoke to Jack. “Helping them will help you, Jack.”

  “Aye,” he nodded and again, tried to offer her a smile but ended up gritting his teeth. He was obviously due for another dose of laudanum.

  She took his wrist, felt for his pulse, thready but stronger, less erratic. He stuck out his tongue—without being asked to—and she laughed.

  “Can you handle a bandage change?” she asked him.

  “Oh, no, Lady Felicity, not in your ball gown!” Mrs. Marshall exclaimed. “You tell me what to do and…”

  But Robbie had risen, pushed his mother aside. “She’s here to marry him, Mama, not to treat him with maggots!”

  “Oh, no, Robbie…” His mother reached out, but Mr. Marshall got to him first.

  “You apologize to your mother and then you take Lady Felicity right back to where you found her,” he demanded, but Robbie was no longer a child, to be towered over and commanded. Instead, like a sulky child, he jerked free, glaring at his father.

  “I don’t want to marry Lady Felicity,” Jack said from the bed.

  “What?” Robbie whipped around. “You’ve always loved her. Always traipsing over to Ansley Park to talk about plants and dirt and…”

  “To see Lady Caro,” Jack whispered.

  Robbie froze. “Lady Caro? But she’s still a school girl.”

  “Not such a school girl anymore, Robbie. But you’re correct, she’s too young to be courted. Not just yet. Which is why it’s been a secret,” Felicity explained. “She hasn’t come out yet.”

  “Lady Caro?” Robbie looked from Felicity to Jack and back. “You knew this?”

  Felicity nodded.

  “You didn’t tell me,” he accused.

  “You would have stolen her from school, which would have suited no one, and destroyed any respectable future for her.”

  “Because you’ve caused scandal enough, haven’t you! It’s your fault she can’t be here!”

  “Robbie!” Mr. Marshall boomed. “Enough of this nonsense!”

  “I thought you knew, Robbie.” Mrs. Marshall, tiny whelp of a woman, wrapped her arms around her large son. “Lady Westhaven and I have sensed it since they were babes playing on a blanket, though we pretended not to.” She shook her head and released her hold, though she continued to stroke his back. “We thought everyone knew.”

  Robbie shook his head.

  “Sit down, lad, let’s let Lady Felicity look at your brother before you take her back to her party.”

  “Of course,” Felicity said. “If I can borrow your apron, Mrs. Marshall.” They exchanged the apron, Felicity removed her gloves, putting them on the bedside table, “There’s a special soap in the dish on that table. I’ll have to wash up. Do you know if there are any maggots left…?”

  ****

  Andover jumped from the carriage before Upton’s driver could stop. Halfway up the outer stairs before his friend stepped down from the conveyance.

  At the top, Andover hesitated, knowing he asked too much of his friend. “This won’t be pleasant. You needn’t come in.”

  Upton stared back. “I’ll keep you in check.”

  “In check?” Did he really seem so sinister? “This place will make you uneasy, not my behavior.” Upton didn’t do well with blood or wounds, or any manner of illness.

  “Oh.” Nonplussed, Upton took the stairs to meet him. “I’m still your man.” He nodded. “Lead the way.”

  He did, into the shadowed interior. A male nurse, no doubt drawn to the sound of the door opening, came out of a back room.

  “Sirs, you must have the wrong house…”

  Andover stepped up, offering coins to the man. “I believe a Jack Marshall is in your care.”

  The man tossed the coins, catching them. “You didn’t need to pay me for that information, but it’s not a nice place for gentlemen like yourselves.”

  “Not to worry, we aren’t looking for niceties at the moment.”

  “Suit yourselves,” he nodded. “Up another floor, turn left. Can’t miss it for the smell.”

  Upton choked.

  “You can wait here.” Andover told him, but grim-faced, tight-lipped, Upton gestured him forward.

  Sounds hit them before the smell. A tortured nightmare’s scream, a voice calming, rustle of a whole ward of men disturbed. Moans, as they readjusted back to sleep.

  A haunting place. One look over his shoulder at a wide-eyed Upton confirmed the strength of friendship. He continued on, following the porter’s clear direction, the horrible scent a prevalent guiding factor.

  He’d found her.

  Stood in the doorway to see four people around a bed where a man lay, his raw stump of a leg uncovered. Felicity, in her ballroom finest covered only by an apron, lent over what was left of the man’s leg and removed large white larvae.

  Drawn by morbid fascination or naïveté, Andover didn’t know which, but Upton stood at his side, only to pull back, gagging. His muffled “Oh! God!” succeeded in gaining everyone’s attention.

  “Go!” Andover ordered, “Wait in the carriage.”

  But his friend only went as far as the corridor, to plunk down on a chair, curled over, pressing his handkerchief to his mouth, stanching any risk of bile escaping.

  Andover turned back. All eyes set on him.

  Four people stood next to a bed where a man lay, his raw stump of a leg uncovered. Andover said, “You chose the maggot treatment.”

  Felicity, serene and peaceful as ever, despite the gore-stained apron and a man’s mangled limb beside her, said, “Yes, the maggot therapy, along with washes and poultices. I’m doing them in turns.” And then basic, ingrained, courtesy had her introducing him.

  “This is Lord Andover,” Felicity told the Marshalls, as though they stood in a drawing room and not their son’s hospital ward.

  “And these—” she informed Andover, “—are Robbie’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Marshall. Neighbors of ours. And, of course, the guest of honor, Jack Marshall.” He thought she blushed, but couldn’t be certain with the poor light.<
br />
  “Of course,” Mr. Marshall remembered. “You came over in the rain, with Lord Westhaven.”

  “Pleased to see you again,” Andover removed his hat. “Though I’m sorry for the circumstances.” He acknowledged Jack, who watched him closely, in sharp contrast to Robbie, who looked everywhere but at Andover.

  He stepped full into the room. “If you don’t mind, I’d like a word with Lady Felicity.” He bowed, and held out his hand to see Felicity truly flustered.

  She gestured to the leg. “There’s one more…” she gestured to the larvae, dropped her head, taking in a deep breath of the foul air before bravely raising it and meeting his eyes. “ …and then the washes. I can’t leave it exposed.”

  “Absolutely.” Despite the dictates of politeness, to step out of the room and leave this family their privacy, he braced against the gore, stood silent, and watched.

  “You leave this to us now,” Mrs. Marshall fluttered about, reaching to help, hesitating, pulling back without once disturbing Felicity’s keen concentration or efficiency.

  “Did you bleed him?” Andover couldn’t keep the question back.

  “No!” Mr. Marshall joined him in the doorway. “Our Felicity never bleeds. Doesn’t believe in it.”

  “Surely a doctor has seen to him.”

  “Aye, before she was here, and more the worse he was. We thank God he’s in her care now.”

  “And when you are home?”

  “You mean the bleeding? Ah, well, the local sawbones agrees with her. Young Dr. Henry was halfway there. Felicity tumbled him to the idea of leaving blood inside a body.”

  Mr. Marshall rocked back on his heels, his thumbs in the arm openings of his waistcoat, as though they were comfortably chatting in a drawing room.

  “Young Dr. Henry?”

  Mr. Marshall nodded. “Young man, younger son of a Viscount, I believe. I think the poor lad is half in love with our Felicity.”

  My Felicity. “I never heard of such an attachment.”

  “No, you wouldn’t.” He chuckled, nodding as his wife learned how to wash their son’s wound. “Lady Felicity would never marry a doctor. No. A bit hard when a woman knows more than a man. I think she sees him as her student.”

  “Surely, you jest.”

  “No,” Mr. Marshall shook his head. “No, not at all, and him that studied up at the college in Edinburgh is still learning from a wee lass.” He beamed proudly at their Felicity.