Carla Kelly Read online

  Sheffield was right, he had discovered the next morning, when he entered the little church housing Marching Hospital Number Eight. There was Dan O’Leary grinning at him, hair as red as ever, Irish eyes bright with good humor, looking six years older, but none the worse for wear. And there was Nell grown up, smiling at him and coming forward with her hand outstretched. She gave him a firm handshake; as he looked into her blue eyes, he knew he would never love another.

  It was that simple. His university training in Milan, that mother of universities, had taught him to be skeptical and to trust nothing he could not prove. But here was Nell standing before him, not much taller than before, but with a womanly shape now, possessing an indefinable something even medical training could not explain. He knew that he could never leave her again.

  It was more than the way she looked, and he knew it, even as he admired the beautiful woman before him. She was quiet, but everything about her was confident and capable. Her own lovely character sparkled before him, and it spoke louder than words. He knew how good this woman was, because he knew the child inside her.

  So the matter stood for two years: the triumph of Bussaco, then back to the lines of Torres Vedras, through grubby sieges at Badajoz, that damned town, the storming of the walls at Ciudad Rodrigo, then on to the brilliance of Salamanca. He looked, he admired, but looming behind Nell like a cloud was Bertie Mason, all smiles and trouble, and Jess’s own shyness.

  He admitted it. He chafed at his shyness. Even more, he chafed at his inability to find a moment for Nell and no one else. When he chose his life’s work, he knew that he would be busy, but he hadn’t counted on Napoleon’s genius for stirring up Europe. There was no balance in his world of war, and Jess knew he needed time he would never have to convince Nell of his devotion. He decided that war was no place to woo.

  Not that he didn’t seriously consider courtship with Elinore, despite the terrors of Bernie Mason as a potential father-in-law. He even went so far one day early in the Burgos siege, when he had a free fifteen minutes, as to park himself in front of the mirror for an assessment. He knew he had enough height to please ladies fond of tall men. His hair was that shade of red the people were prone to call handsome, because it was dark instead of carrot-colored. What a relief not to be mistaken for a root crop, he thought, and smiled to himself. He frowned in the mirror next, wondering why an ordinarily merciful God had chosen him to have curly hair, which was such a bother on campaign because his comb always went right to the bottom of his trunk and stayed there, resisting all discovery.

  His face was just a face. He had grown up among thin-lipped, tight-nosed folk, Scots frugal physically as well as economically. One of the first things he had noticed about Spain was the full lips of the Spanish beauties, whether flower girl or marquesa. Ever the anatomist, he admired the deepset, dark eyes of men and women alike, and the effect of a nose with character. Ah, well. At least his teeth were all his own, with none of the gaps he saw in the local population. He knew his mother would credit that to oats for breakfast.

  The mirror was small, but he backed away from it and turned sidways. He patted his waist, noting that it was especially easy to maintain a flat stomach during a siege. No one was well-fed on either side of the walls of Burgos, except the regimental quartermaster. Suspicious, that. He sat down again in front of the mirror. His father and brothers were all lean men, too; he had no reason to fear that he would someday run to fat and make his wife uncomfortable.

  With growing impatience—and the realization that it was almost time to administer powders to the fever patient in cot three—he stared at himself. You, sir, who are so eloquent when describing diagnoses and prognoses, tighten up like a clam when a healthy female is within at least a three-hundred-yard radius. You, sir, who can deliver babies, and deal with private female functions without a blush or murmur, turn into a bumbler when a disease-free lady even glances in your direction. Too bad you never learned a remedy for shyness at the University of Milan.

  He turned away from the mirror in disgust.

  And now it was Burgos in late autumn, only one tantalizing river away from the French Pyrenees, but too far. They would begin a retreat soon and retrace their steps of summer through Salamanca, and back to Portugal. He did not fancy it, but he fancied Burgos even less, and the dismal little village close by where the regiment was quartered. Here Number Eight waited with its military cover for the retreat.

  He looked up from his paperwork to see David Sheffield glaring down at him. “Yes, I’m wasting time,” he said. “There is something about reports, especially this one.” He gestured at the paper in front of him, the one describing the death of the toddler yesterday.

  Sheffield rested his hand on Jess’s shoulder for a brief moment. “Just finish it, Jess,” he said gently.

  He did as Sheffield directed, his heart heavy, then looked around the tent, soothing himself with the order he saw. As a reward, he gave himself permission to seek out Nell Mason with his eyes. She was scraping lint with Dan O’Leary, no one’s favorite job. The lint would be stretched into long rolls and sandwiched between sheets of paper, ready for use at the next battle. The lint clung to everything; Jess was sure he could taste it in his food, lurking among slabs of dreary beef and great whacking hunks of squash.

  Nell must have sensed he was looking at her, because she turned his way and nodded. “Join us?” she teased, holding up a fistful of lint. He could see it in her dark hair.

  “In a word, no.” He smiled at her. “You know how I love my paperwork.”

  They both laughed. Then he stopped, put down his pen, and rose, every nerve on edge, because Major William Bones had entered the tent. A chair scraped behind him, and he knew that Dan was on his feet, too, not out of deference but caution.

  He also knew that Dan stood for the same reason. There was something about the way the major looked at Nell Mason that set off warning bells jangling inside his head. He had never really voiced the matter with Dan; it was something they understood.

  Curious about instinct: every man who came into the tent unconsciously sought out Nell Mason with his eyes. In their hard world of bad water, poor quarters, seething latrines, and terror around the next hill, beauty was as rare as roses in January. After his return to the regiment, Jess learned quickly that most men wanted to look and admire. With Bones it was different. “It’s like he takes her clothes off with his eyes” was the only comment Dan O’Leary had ever made about the matter.

  And I don’t? Jess had thought at the time, and wasted a useless evening contemplating the sin of hypocrisy. Even his overactive conscience had to yield to the fact that Major Bones was an ugly customer. I have cleaned up after your too-frequent floggings, he thought, even as he watched the man now. No telling what you would do to a woman, given enough rage or spite. So he stood up, keeping himself between the major and Nell, even as Daniel did.

  “Afternoon, gentlemen. Miss Mason.”

  Jess winced. Anyone else saying that would sound perfectly unexceptionable, except that Dan O’Leary was no gentleman, which rendered the salutation condescending, even cruel. “Major, may we help you?” he forced himself to say.

  “How many of my men in your hospital?”

  “Three, sir,” he replied, relieved to turn to medicine. “Jenks there with a chest wound. It’s healing now, but it’s slow.” He could have said so much more about the hours and hours after Salamanca at the private’s bedside, patiently reinflating his chest when his lungs collapsed, but he did not. “Holmes’ boils are about to head. I think he’ll be able to put on his trousers again in a few days. I am going to discharge Lewiston tomorrow.”

  “Make it now,” Bones said. He stalked over to Holmes and flung back the blanket to look at the chafing boils on his thighs. “Get your pants on, Private.” Bones grinned at Jess. “I expect when Granny Sheffield gets back from Officers Call, he’ll have news for all of you. We’re retreating.”

  Jesse held his breath as the major took a long
look at Nell, then brushed past her—she tried to step back, but he was too close—to stand over Jenks. The private looked up at him with terrified eyes. “Jenks, I think you’re a dead man. Too bad, but there you are.”

  “Major, there’s no call for that,” Jess said. “We will take care of him.”

  “Oh, you will? Going to keep that ox cart from bumping him all over creation? Unlike you, little man, I am a realist.”

  You’re a sadist, Jess thought. Jenks began to hyperventilate, taking greater and greater gulps of air into his sorely tried lungs. Daniel hurried toward the small bellows hanging on the closest tent post. Nell seemed rooted to the ground, and he knew then how great her own terror was.

  Bones laughed. He went to brush past Nell again, but she moved away. He stopped, standing too close, but not touching her. “Miss Mason, I hear your mother is ill. Pity, considering how busy our dear Bertie will be soon. Who’s to look after you?”

  “We will, Major. How dare you bully my staff.” Jess said it quietly enough, and almost surprised himself with the menace behind his words.

  It was enough menace to distract Bones from Nell, who had gone as white as a new bandage. Jess took a deep breath as Bones walked the length of the tent to where he still stood beside his desk. “I don’t care for your tone, Captain,” he said when they were practically toe-to-toe.

  Don’t imagine for a moment that I won’t stare you down, Jess thought. How dare you? After a long moment—Jess wasn’t sure he was even breathing—the major turned away. “Hurry up, Holmes!” he shouted to the man struggling into his trousers. “Lewiston, help him, you sorry sod!”

  He turned back quickly, swung his hand, and tipped over the inkwell on the reports. “Watch yourself, Surgeon.” After another long look at Nell, who was helping Daniel with the bellows, he left the tent.

  Swearing under his breath, Jess ran to Jenks’ cot and held his hands while his steward continued to work the bellows. Nell ran to fetch a cool cloth. She dipped it in vinegar, their only antiseptic, and wiped it across the terrified soldier’s forehead as he struggled to breathe.

  “It’s all right, Private, we know what to do,” Jess said, keeping his voice soft. “You just have to know by now that we will never abandon you.”

  As they labored over Jenks, some of the other patients began to murmur to each other; one or two tried to rise. “As you were, men,” Jess said calmly. “As you were.” In a few moments, they were quiet again. Soon Private Jenks was breathing regularly, his eyes closed, exhausted from the effort.

  Jess could feel two pairs of eyes on his, and he looked from Nell to Daniel, and back to Nell again, finding his own reassurance in her steady gaze. Well, Hippocrates, he asked himself as he gestured for Dan to remove the bellows, did you ever feel uncomfortable when people thought you knew what you were doing? He stood over Jenks a few minutes longer, then returned to clean up the mess on his desk.

  To his gratification, Nell came to help. She moved quickly and surely around the table, moving books to keep them safe, and deftly pouring the ink that had pooled on the top sheet back into the bottle and saving the rest of the report underneath. How long have you been cleaning up after us? he thought, even though he knew the answer. He smiled at her as she worked, oblivious to his attention.

  A chuckle made him glance over at the soldier lying on the nearest cot. As he watched, and felt his face redden, the man gave him a slow wink. Oh, Lord, I am a cloth head, he thought, but managed a weak smile at the whole row of invalids. To his dismay, one of them raised up on his only elbow and gestured with his head. “Hey, Doc, if that ugly customer shows his phiz in here again, bring him my way and I’ll puke on him.”

  The other men laughed, and Jess had to laugh, too. “Promise?” he asked, then sat down at the desk again. He was smiling as he picked up his pen again, at least until Nell sat down suddenly beside him, and pulled the stool up close to his knees. “Are you all right, my dear?” he asked quietly, jolted into sobriety again by the fear in her eyes.

  She looked at him for a long moment, as if willing him to understand what she was going to say, so she wouldn’t have to speak out loud.

  He did understand. “He wasn’t far off the mark, was he?”

  She shook her head. “He…he comes around our tent now and then.” Again the silence, longer this time, until her uneasiness was almost palpable. “Papa owes him money.”

  It was on the tip of his tongue to reply that charming Bertie Mason probably owed everyone in the Peninsula. He inclined his head toward her instead, and she moved in closer, as though seeking comfort. “Tell me, Nell.”

  “He looks at me, just looks at me! I don’t think he even blinks. And then he reminds Papa how much money he owes, and he leaves.” She leaned even closer, until he could smell the vinegar on her hands. “Mama tells me it’s nothing, but Mama never did like to face unpleasantness.”

  You’ve had to face it for her almost since you were in leading strings, he thought, you and Will. Now Will’s enjoying Cambridge, and you are here in the mud still. Keep it professional, Jesse, he told himself, especially with that whole row of pikers straining to hear. I swear they are worse than my old aunts! “Life’s not easy here, is it, Nell?” he commented, amazed at his own vacuity.

  His reward was a quizzical look, and then a slight smile. “It’s all I know, Captain,” she said. She laughed softly, but he swore he heard uneasiness in it. “Do you mean there is someplace without heat and dust?”

  “Dundee,” he replied promptly, then touched her hand lightly, hoping no one, including Nell, noticed. “How is your mother?”

  Nell frowned, but did not move her hand. “Major Sheffield bled her this morning, but I do not believe she is any better.” She rose. “I need to go, if you can spare me.”

  Never in a million years, Nell, my love, he thought. “Of course, my dear,” he said, rising, too, for Sheffield had entered the tent, followed by a familiar figure. “Let me send Daniel with you. If you need something more, please ask.” He sent them both off, then turned his attention to his superiors. “Tell me, sirs, are the rumors only that?”

  Colonel James McGrigor, spare of limb, tall of frame, and devoid of meaningful hair, extended his hand and Jess shook it, always amazed at the formality of the man. We have stood, shoes deep in blood after Fuentes de Oñoro, operating side by side, and still you hold out your hand. Now comes the bow, eh?

  It did, the stiff little bow, looking slightly silly from a man so tall and thin. And so shy. Jess knew better than to look at him longer than necessary, even if he was Sir Arthur’s inspector-general of hospitals, and deserving of all attention. “Lad, nae rumor bu’ fact,” he said.

  Despite himself, Jesse had to hold back a smile, remembering the first time Nell had watched one of the great McGrigor’s inspections. “But, sir, I cannot understand what he says! Where is he from?”

  “Scotland, like me,” he had told her, “but Glasgow, where they swallow half the words.”

  He nodded to McGrigor, who turned away, and hands behind his back, walked up and down the rows of cots. Jesse could tell he was counting, and it chilled him. “How soon?” he asked Sheffield, who stood beside him.

  “Hard to say.” The Chief shrugged. “One more river to France, but it’s too far. Back we go to the lines.” He leaned closer. “I hear you had a visit from Major Bones.”

  “Does anything move faster than talk from a hospital?”

  “I doubt it. You know, Jess, it is one of the mysteries of life that good men like Fitzroy-Somerset lose arms, or worse, but the Major Boneses among us never even get a runny nose.”

  They waited together until McGrigor finished walking up and down. He paused before them finally, and nodded, then left. “I will see you in Torres Vedras,” he said over his shoulder. “Carry on, men.”

  Sheffield looked at Jess. “He wanted me to thank you for your reports. ‘No one’s as thorough,’ he told me.”

  “Well, guess who taught me?” Jess said with
a grin that widened as Sheffield’s own color rose in his face. “All right, jefe, do we start to pack?”

  Chapter Two

  They began to pack, but only after Jess’s least favorite hospital duty: releasing soldiers who weren’t quite ready. I need just a few more days on this one, and that one, he wanted to say. He sent them off to their companies instead, and wondered how soon he would find them drooping along the line of march. Ten men remained.

  Sheffield did keep back two of the healthier ones to help with the packing, and it was accomplished quickly. What he could barely cram into his allotted two panniers at the beginning of the Salamanca campaign now fit in a medium-sized box, with the ubiquitous lint packed in here and there to keep his medicine bottles from rattling.

  He had high hopes for this retreat, considering how orderly the plan sounded. Sheffield was less sanguine, even as he read over his notes again, taken in haste during Wellington’s officers call. “I think it generous of Sir Arthur to hold back on the marching hospitals and send us off one at a time, but only if no one gets confused,” he said.

  “It won’t happen,” Jesse assured him. “Don’t you trust our friends in the Third Division? Aren’t we all veterans?”

  Sheffield seemed on the verge of a comment when Daniel threw back the tent flap and came inside, shaking the rain off his cloak. He looked at Jess. “I don’t know what to do,” he said simply, discouragement high in his voice. “Please come.”

  “I thought Mrs. Mason was improving,” Sheffield said, getting to his feet again with a sigh. “I took a good pint of blood off her this morning. What could have happened?”

  Daniel held out his hand, as if to stop the chief surgeon. “Begging your pardon, sir, but Nell asked for the captain here. She told me you were to go to your cot, put up your feet, and rub eucalyptus oil on your chest, to cut your cough.” He turned to look at Jess then. “Mrs. Mason specifically asked for you, too, sir.”

  Sheffield sat down again, but he was smiling. “Who would think Nell would turn into a tyrant! Did you, Jess? Well, I will do as you suggest, Dan.” He looked at Jesse. “Hurry on, now, and answer the lady’s summons. Maybe it’s only a matter of another little bleeding for Mrs. Mason.”