Carla Kelly Read online

  There was no disguising the look of utter loathing that Bones threw his way. It didn’t last long, but Jess felt it right down to his wool socks.

  “What a vast relief that is to me, Captain,” Bones said, biting off each word. “I would be distressed if during the general chaos of retreat that Miss Mason found herself on her own without protection.”

  “It won’t happen,” Jess assured him.

  “Then her mother still lives?” Bones asked.

  The sickroom door opened, and Bertie Mason leaned against the frame. “William, she has passed from this life into what I am hopeful is a better life,” he said.

  I’ll say, Jess thought. You’re not in it.

  Nell rose. “Because of this, Major, you will understand if my father and I wish to be alone at this time to make plans. Don’t let us keep you from whatever pressing business falls under your scrutiny.”

  “Oh, is that it?” he asked.

  “I believe it is, sir.” Nell held out her hand to the major, and Jess was impressed to see that it did not tremble. “Anything you might wish to discuss with my father can wait for another day. Good night, Major Bones.”

  He had no choice but to leave. Bones admonished Bertie to be a man when he started to sob again, and threw Jess another furious glance before stalking from the room.

  I believe I have an enemy, Jess thought. Well, there is a first time for everything.

  Chapter Three

  Jesse assured Nell that the medical corps would find an army-issue coffin for her mother. It wasn’t strictly regulation, but he had no doubts that Sheffield would approve.

  Bertie shook his head. “I cannot think that a common coffin is worthy of my excellent wife. I will find something better if I must search all day tomorrow.”

  “Papa, we are beginning a retreat tomorrow,” Nell reminded him.

  Bertie looked at her sorrowfully. “It is the least I can do for your mother.”

  When did you ever do anything but the least for her? Jess thought. You expected so much and did so little, I wonder that you can summon the courage to glance into your shaving mirror each morning. But men like you never see that, do you?

  “Papa, we haven’t money for such a coffin. Army issue will do just as well,” Nell said, with a firm voice. Jess recognized the tone from years past when Nell was much younger and took charge in situations where a parent should have led.

  This time Bertie would not be put off. “I will borrow what I need from Major Bones,” he told his daughter. “Five pounds should do it.”

  “Papa, that is five more pounds you must pay him back!” Nell burst out, and Jess heard the panic in her voice.

  Bertie was oblivious. “Nell, I am wounded,” he said. “How can you think so lightly of your own dear mother? Besides, Bones’ terms are never onerous.” The captain looked at Jess. “You may leave now, sir.” He pulled on his cloak again. “I will only be a few minutes, Nell. I should find the major.” He left without another word.

  Jess looked at Nell. “Will he be back tonight?”

  She was too ashamed to look at him. “It is highly unlikely, Captain. Someone will offer him a drink, and then another.”

  “Then I will stay.”

  To his relief, she didn’t argue. She managed a ghost of a smile. “Captain, I will have no reputation at all,” she said. She looked toward the door, as if all the officers’ wives stood there pointing fingers. “Not that the Masons ever had the encumbrance of a reputation. Please stay.” Her voice faltered. “I do not really want to be alone tonight.”

  A word to Daniel sent him out the door. He returned with Number Eight’s orderlies and a stretcher. By then, Jess and Nell, who insisted on helping, over his protests, had prepared Mrs. Mason. Her hands were folded across her middle and bound lightly with a linen strip. While Nell gently smoothed down her mother’s nightgown over her feet, he bound them together at ankles and knees, then tied a bandage around her face to keep her jaw closed against any rigor. I wonder if I could prepare my own mother for a coffin, he thought, and marveled at Nell’s quiet strength.

  When they were done, Nell ran her hand down her mother’s arm. “No more headache, Mama,” she said softly. “Or palpitations, or grocer’s bills, or mud, or letters that never came.” She looked at him. “Must she go to the dead tent?”

  He hated to tell her yes, but he had no choice. “I’m sorry, my dear, but those are regulations. The bedding must go with her, too.”

  She nodded, and went quietly into the front room, where she sat on the packing cases and pallet that constituted the Mason family’s sofa. She sat with her knees drawn up to her body, and her arms around them. She looked at him when he sat down beside her. “Do you think anyone is ever ready for death?”

  “I know I am not,” he said frankly.

  Daniel touched her shoulder then, and nodded to the stretcher bearers to go ahead. “I have a nice peaceful corner for her in the tent,” Daniel told her. “She’ll have her bedding all around her, too, Nell.”

  The Chief was so right about you, Dan, Jess thought, as he watched Nell relax. I just get scientific and probably stuffy, but you have made death into a grouchy uncle that we have to humor, because that’s what relatives do. “Thank you, Dan,” he said.

  The steward smiled and stood between Nell and the inner room, shielding her eyes from the bearers as they gathered up Mrs. Mason. He kept up a simple conversation so she had to pay attention to him. In another moment, they were quietly out the door.

  Jess sat in silence. There was so much he wanted to say. Dear one, I have promised your mother I would take care of you, he wanted to tell her, but he knew this was not the time. And there was Major Bones, maybe even right now calling in his loans to Bertie Mason. He is probably right now promising poor, befuddled Bertie that he’s the one to take care of you. He took a sideways glance at Nell, still tucked close, with her head resting on her knees now.

  Still he sat in silence, not moving closer to her. In a few minutes she went into her room, coming back with pillow and threadbare blanket. “I do not know how you will be comfortable there tonight,” she said, uncertainty high in her voice.

  “I will be even less comfortable in my tent, worrying about you here alone,” he replied, taking the bedding from her.

  For some reason his words seemed to make enormous sense to her. She nodded. “Good night then, sir,” she said. “Tomorrow will be a busy day, will it not?” She went to her own room, where the door only hung on by a leather strap.

  Always acute of hearing, he lay on the packing crates, hands behind his head, listening as she rustled out of her dress. Her shoes hit the floor next, and then he heard the sound of a brush through long hair and the faint crackle of electricity. If we were married, Nell, I could brush your hair, he thought. We could sit on the end of the bed and talk about the day. He slept then; it was a more comforting picture than his usual last thoughts of fever and delirium, and who he would find alive in the morning.

  He couldn’t have slept long. He was still lying on his back, his hands behind his head. The rain had finally stopped, and he could hear Nell crying. She was being quiet about it, but there was no mistake.

  He lay there, wondering what to do. He had almost decided to do nothing, convinced that solitude was often best—but he knew better. He thought of Maestro della Suave, his excellent teacher of anatomy, who used to sit for hours beside a pallet in the poor ward that other physicians and students had passed with no more interest than the Pharisee on the road to Jericho.

  He got up and went to Nell. “Move over,” he told her. “I’m too tired to sit up, but I would be a poor surgeon if I let myself listen to you cry.”

  She gave him no argument. In another moment he held her close, one arm around her waist, as she burrowed into him like a small child. He didn’t have to say anything; all he needed to do was think of his own mother, warm and safe in Scotland, oblivious to his own difficult life because in her goodness she could not really imagine armi
es. Mother, what would you do if I sent Nell to you? You always wanted a daughter. He knew the answer to that, and it made him smile.

  The night was chilly, and he was thankful for her warmth. When her sobs subsided, she slept. He knew he could leave her then and return to the packing crate pallet, but it was his turn to reject the solitude of a single bed. He breathed deep of Nell’s hair, and closed his eyes in complete comfort.

  He woke up early to the sound of rain. For the smallest moment he wondered where he was, until the gentle restfulness of Nell against his back reminded him. He lay there with a smile on his face. How strange this is, he told himself. Here I am in a tumbledown shack, there is a retreat about to begin, and it has rained so much that I am wondering when Noah will knock on the door and ask for two of something. There is a captain probably drunk somewhere who is about as useful as tits on a boar, and a bastard who is quite ready to ruin this pleasant lady I am currently lying back-to-back with. And I am a happy man. Are all Scots so certifiable? No wonder the English do not allow us to have our own Parliament.

  As much as he hated to leave Nell’s warmth, he thought it prudent to retire to the other room. After years of sharing a tent with other surgeons, he knew how to leave a room quietly without disturbing someone who had been on duty all night. In another moment he was lying on the packing crates, certain he would not sleep.

  When he woke, the rain had stopped again and Daniel O’Leary was shaking his shoulder. “Captain Randall! You have to hear this!”

  He sat up, wide awake, as his training took over. “What is it, Dan?” He dragged out his timepiece. “’Pon my word, it’s nearly eight of the clock. Where do I need to be?”

  The hospital steward shook his head. “Oh, Captain, it’s where I’ve been! The Chief sent me directly here to tell you, and to warn Nell.”

  “Warn me about what?” Nell stood there in her bare feet, doing up the last button on her dress. Her hair was uncombed, but she had a brush in her other hand.

  Jess patted the packing crate, but she just stood there. “Did my father ever return?” she asked.

  He shook his head, then looked at Daniel again. “Did you find him?”

  “I heard him,” the steward said, his voice grim. “Oh, Nell.” He turned back to Jess, as if unable to bear looking at her. “The Chief sent me after breakfast to bleed Major Tomlinson of the Fifth Foot.”

  Jess couldn’t help a smile. “Ah, yes! He does this before every retreat.”

  “And all special occasions, Captain,” Dan said. “Didn’t you once say that if he added Jewish holidays to his special occasions, he would have no blood left?”

  “In my lighter, more frivolous days,” he replied, wondering what Nell was thinking of him. “But that is of no consequence. What is the matter?”

  “It’s Major Bones, isn’t it?” Nell asked quietly.

  The hospital steward nodded. “I wish you would sit down.”

  She did as he suggested, sitting next to Jesse and pulling his blanket over to cover her bare feet. “Did he call in those infamous loans?”

  Dan nodded again. He looked at Jesse. “Sir, Captain Tomlinson was sitting outside under his tent fly.” He glanced at Nell, his look apologetic. “I…I suppose Captain Mason spent the night there, but I could hear him inside the tent, talking to Bones.” His face darkened, and he started to say something, but shook his head instead.

  “Tell us all, Daniel,” Jess said.

  “Nell, he told your father he had to pay the ninety-five pounds now, before the retreat.”

  Nell gasped. “Dan! That is even more than I thought he owed!” she said. “How will I find even the tiniest part of such a sum?”

  Jess took her hand. “Let’s hear it all, Nell.”

  Dan pulled up a stool. “Your father started to cry, and confess that he did not have it. He pleaded to repay him when we reached the lines of Torres Vedras.”

  “As though he would have it there,” Nell said, her voice bitter. “That can’t have convinced Major Bones of anything.”

  Dan shook his head. “Of course it did not.”

  He shifted his weight on the stool, and it protested. Jess noticed that he could not look Nell in the eye. Here it comes, he thought. “Tell us.”

  Dan was a moment in speaking, and even then he looked at Jess. “Sir, he said he would take Nell in exchange for the debt. Just like he was dealing in cattle!” he burst out. He lowered his voice, but he still could not bring himself to look at Nell, who had gone as white as a winding cloth. “Sir, he promised to marry Nell after the retreat.”

  “But not before,” Jess said, amazed at his own calmness. “Even though we have chaplains aplenty in this army, and there is a priest behind every bush in Spain.”

  They were all silent. Nell pressed up against him, and he put his arm around her. Puny comfort, he thought, going over his own resources in his mind. We have not been paid in four months. I wonder if I have even ten pounds to my name? He thought about the family money gathering interest in Edinburgh so far away.

  “What did Bertie say to that?” he asked.

  Dan shifted again, and this time he looked at Nell. “To his credit, your father said it was an infamous bargain, and that no Christian gentleman would even consider it.”

  “Thank God,” Nell said.

  Dan frowned, then he glanced at Jess with a wry smile. “Captain, there I was, listening so hard that I forgot how much I had bled Captain Tomlinson. He’s more than usually pale, and I do not think he will want to get off his cot anytime soon.”

  “Then it will be a typical day in his career,” Jess said dryly. “Did he dismiss you?”

  “I wasn’t about to leave!” Dan declared, and had the grace to blush. “I hope you won’t tell the Chief, but I told Captain Tomlinson that I needed to take his pulse for five minutes straight now, to make sure that all his bodily humors hadn’t leeched out.”

  “Hippocrates would be honored,” Jess said, with the ghost of a smile. “At least you did not get out a rattle and dance around him like an aborigine. All right, Dan, spill the rest of this. There has to be more, or you wouldn’t look so glum.”

  “There’s more.” He looked Nell in the eye this time. “Oh, Nell, the major offered to find him a grand coffin for your mother. Said he thought he could locate a coffin suitable for a lady.” He sighed and looked down at his hands. “That was all it took.”

  How strange are the workings of guilt, Jess thought. When Audrey Mason is gone beyond his reach—or his regret, I suppose—he thinks to honor her. He had been in Spain too long to doubt the next step. Bones will pay some starving paisano to dig up a coffin and dump out its occupant. He had seen it before. “We must stop him,” he said.

  “Major Bones?” she asked. “Can we take this to General Wellesley?”

  He could hear no confidence in her voice now. Well, Captain Randall, he thought, you had better see how convincing an actor you are. He took a deep breath. “No, my dear, I think Sir Arthur will not have time to bother with us today, even if we could find him, which I doubt. Bones would only deny he had ever loaned him money.” He gave her a hug. “No, my dear, we have to make your father a better offer.”

  You are quick with the comforting platitude, Jesse told himself sourly as he walked through the rain a few minutes later, shoulders hunched, to the marching hospital. He glanced at Dan, grateful that the steward chose not to comment. They had left Nell with a dubious look on her face, but packing anyhow. He knew she didn’t want them around; a glance around Audrey Mason’s bedchamber as she lay dying had pointed out more eloquently than words that the Masons had very little substance between them and ruin. He wondered that Nell could have much dignity left, not after her mother’s death, her father’s various stupidities, and Major Bones’ plans. She had seemed calm enough. It is entirely possible that I may still be underestimating her, he told himself.

  “It seems unfair,” he said at last to Dan as they slogged along. “Why is it that good people invariably
seem to come out on the slimy side of the pond, while wretched specimens like Major Bones rise to the top like someone three days dead?”

  Dan’s answer was slow in coming, and when it did, it was not a comment on his inane observation. “How are we going to find ninety-five pounds?” He stopped. “Did I mention that the major told Captain Mason that he had until six o’clock?”

  To his credit, Major Sheffield didn’t fly into the boughs when Jess told him the situation. His grip got a little tighter around the bellows he was working for Private Jenks, and he blinked his eyes a few times, but there was no outburst beyond a string of profanity that made Jess stare. “Chief, I wish I knew what to do.”

  “Empty out your pockets, lad,” Sheffield said briskly, handing the bellows to Dan, who continued the slow, careful motion. “By God, I am inclined to dump every soldier in here upside down until he coughs up whatever shilling he is hoarding. Hear that, lads?”

  It would have been difficult not to. “Oh, Chief, we can’t ask our patients to pony up,” Jess said.

  “We can,” Sheffield insisted. “Lads, listen to me. This is the only marching hospital in the whole army with someone as wonderful as Nell Mason in it. Her mother died last night, and she needs help with funeral expenses.”

  “Sir, I disremember when most of us were last paid,” one of the men called, even as he sat up and reached for his trousers at the end of his cot. His searching turned up a coin, which he held up for Jess. “Not much, is it, sir? Ah, but she’s a fine one.”

  She is, indeed, Jess thought as he circulated down the few rows of men who still remained, touched that they would willingly surrender what remained of their money—a pence here, a shilling there—when His Majesty saw fit to pay them so little in the first place. Each offering was given with an air of apology, the giver wishing the gift was greater. “You would call these men a rabble, eh, Sir Arthur?” he said softly to himself as he transferred the coins to the sole unbroken emesis basin.

  While he had been collecting from his patients, Sheffield must have gone to their shared tent. He returned holding out an unmated stocking. “Eleven pounds, Jesse,” he said, and poured the coin into the basin.