Carla Kelly (32 page)

“No, Papa, you did not,” she said quietly, “but it doesn’t follow that I am the poorer for it.” She looked at his hand in hers, and rested her cheek against it. “You came to find us. What more proof do I need of your affection for me?”

The door had hardly closed behind them when Jesse took her in his arms. He kissed her, held her out from him as though for a good look, then pulled her close again, close enough to suggest to her that neither of them would be on their feet much longer. She could have wished for a bath, or a pretty nightgown, or even just a brush, but wasn’t sure that any of it mattered much to her husband. She thought he would not object when she pulled away to unbutton her dress, but he kept her close.

“I must confess to a dreadful lie, Elinore,” he told her.

“You would never lie to me,” she contradicted. She could at least unbutton his shirt, if he didn’t want to pull away.

“I did, back there in the dead tent when we were married. Mind the neckcloth, Elinore. It’s the only one I have left. When you asked if I would agree to let you make up your mind at the Portuguese border, I said yes.” He moved back a little to unbutton her dress. “I didn’t mean it.” He stopped to look into her eyes, and then kissed her neck. “You already know that.”

“Oh, I do.” She looked down at him and smiled. “Jesse, I think one of us should unbutton your trousers. I have no needle and thread. If you pop those buttons, you will look more unsoldierly than usual.”

He laughed, his hand over his mouth. “Get in bed, Elinore. Time’s wasting.”

She did as he said, and welcomed him inside her body with her usual earnest generosity. She knew he was tired, but he took his time, making sure that she climaxed first. When he came, she pressed her hands hard against the small of his back, with her lips to his ear as he muttered something into her neck.

He was in no hurry to leave her. “If I get heavy, just
push me off, but Elinore, you feel so good, I hope you won’t. Am I making any sense?”

“None whatsoever,” she whispered back. “Is that common, at times like this?”

“I fear so. You will think you have married a gibbering idiot.”

She laughed softly, adoring his warmth and the altogether seductive realization that she had the surgeon’s full attention. She rested her legs on his. “Possessive, are we?” he asked, his voice drowsy.

“Most certainly, my dear,” she replied. “I have observed you in the hospital for several years, and the reality is not lost on me that you have very little free time.” She ran her feet up and down his legs several times, and felt herself growing warm again, and anxious. “Oh, do humor me,” she gasped.

He humored her.

Morning brought leaden skies, but no rain. She lay in bed and listened to the roar of the river. Jesse was already awake and dressed. “Up, my dear,” he said, buttoning his uniform jacket. He sat down beside her and ran his hand along her bare shoulder. “Just think. You married me and got an exciting honeymoon trip through a foreign country, visited royalty, and improved your language skills. Now we have a voyage ahead, and perhaps a reception on the other shore.”

She sat up, dragging the blanket around her shoulders. “What will happen to us?”

He kissed her forehead. “That, my love, will depend entirely upon the French.”

She feared a mishap on the ferry, but there was none. When they were across, her father gave the ferryman his last handful of sovereigns. They followed their usual order of march, her father included this time, traveling single file down the narrow cow trail on the other side of the Douro. The closer they came to the river, the more French troops they saw on that opposite bank. Some of the fusiliers fired, but the balls fell short.

She remembered the Douro well from other crossings, and knew that soon they would reach the broad flood plain barren of sheltering trees. She looked around her at the companions of the retreat, observing their alert watchfulness,
their silence, and the way they set their lips tighter, the closer they came to the plain. Tonight we will be inside the walls of Ciudad Rodrigo, she told herself. Her father took the lead from Harper, and led them at an oblique angle away from the river. She could hear the water boiling in the gorge now, and knew the Roman bridge was beyond the bend. She raised up in her saddle and strained for a look at Ciudad Rodrigo, and there it was.

The next sequence of events happened so quickly that she knew she could never reconstruct them exactly, even if a wigged barrister had demanded a deposition. As the sun came out, she saw a flash of light and glanced to her left along the riverbank they were riding away from. The others had seen the soldiers, too, half hidden in the trees.

She saw the flash of a sword, and the guns fired. She screamed as Harper reeled in his saddle and clutched the pommel. Without hesitation and already fumbling in his medical satchel, Jesse rode to him. Her father grabbed her reins and tugged them, indicating that she follow him. Wilkie immediately rode beside her to cover her from the tree line.

“Down here,” Mason called, and she followed him down an embankment, fighting to keep her seat as her horse slid on his haunches. Harper was already on the ground, his back against the embankment as Jesse applied pressure to his bleeding arm. Elinore threw herself down beside him and pulled a pressure bandage from her satchel. He grabbed it, crammed it into the wound, and raised his neck so she would take off his neckcloth. He smiled his thanks and bound Harper’s arm tight.

“Are you all right?” she asked the private.

He nodded, but he spoke to Jesse, his tone apologetic. “We shouldn’t have been caught by that, Chief.”

“I suppose not. Can you ride?”

“Better’n ol’ Wilkie on ’is best day, sir.”

It was a feeble joke, but Wilkie laughed. “’arper, you’re a liar, and I’ll prove you wrong. Watch me, ’arry.”

A look passed between the two friends that set warning bells jangling in her head. “Please don’t,” she started to say, but the event was beyond her before the words left her mouth. Wilkie began to back up his horse along the embankment.

“Get on your horse, Mrs. Randall,” Harper ordered. “You, too, Chief. Now!”

She obeyed the private without question, forced into obedience by the look in his eyes. She did not dare glance at Wilkie because she knew what he was going to do. “Don’t, Wilkie,” she whispered as her father threw her back into her saddle. His face white, Jesse helped Harper onto his horse and mounted his own. He turned to speak to Wilkie, but it was too late. After a wink at Harper, the private rode his horse out of the embankment at a gallop, slapping the animal hard with the reins, and dashed toward the river.

“My God! He’ll be killed!” Jesse exclaimed. He gathered his reins in his hands.

“He told you once that the only military lesson he ever remembered was a diversion, Chief. Remember?” Harper shouted, his voice tight with pain. “He’s trying to buy you a life!”

The guns went off, and Elinore burst into tears. When the guns continued to pop all along the line of skirmishers, Harper grabbed her reins from her with his good hand. “He’s not making it easy for them Frogs, and I wish you and the Chief would move!”

“I can’t leave him to die,” Jesse said. “I have to do something!”

“No, I do,” Bertie Mason said. Crouching over his horse, he rode toward Jesse and grabbed his sleeve.

“Let go of me!”

“No! Private Harper, do your duty with this stubborn man. I’ve been a captain longer than he has, and I outrank him. Here, I’ll make it easier.”

Her heart in her throat, Elinore watched as her father whipped out his sabre and struck her husband on the temple with it. Jesse’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he fell forward across the pommel of his saddle. Without missing a beat, Mason slung him onto Harper’s lap. He looked back at Elinore. “Pity to do that to my only son-in-law. Do name one of your sons after me.” He tipped his hand to her and rode out of the embankment.

Harper, his face wet with tears, clamped his bleeding arm over his captain, and nosed his horse forward. “Mrs. Randall, you ride at an angle toward the city. I’ll be right behind you. Don’t stop for anything.”

Numb, she nodded, took a deep breath, and dug her heels into her mount. I can’t do this, she told herself as she did it. She screamed again when the French guns roared, but they were not directed at her or Harper. Her last view of her father, before she focused her entire mind, sight, and energy on Ciudad Rodrigo, was the sight of him kneeling over Wilkie and then pulling his horse down beside him.

She must have hesitated, because Harper growled something at her. She gave him the coldest glare she could muster, but redoubled her efforts, even though it pained her heart to flog her tired mount with the riding crop her father had thrust at her before she rode out of the embankment.

The firing stopped when the French troops lost the range, but Harper was relentless in prodding her forward. The city gate opened when she and Harper reached the causeway. Her mind barely registered the new walls and the number of soldiers lining the ramparts who were cheering them. Oh, don’t, she wanted to tell them. We have lost so much.

Once safely inside the walls, Elinore leaped from her horse without waiting for assistance and hurried to Harper, who by now was leaning low over the body of his chief surgeon, his whole arm crimson from the shoulder down. She stood there, hands cradling her husband’s head as he dangled, insensible, across the private’s lap.

General Picton himself rushed up. “Great Neptune’s soggy balls!” he roared. “What on earth?”

“Marching Hospital Number Eight, reporting for duty,” Harper said. “Better late than never,” he managed to say before the tears came. Elinore reached up to touch his foot in the stirrup.

Picton gestured, and two soldiers gently removed Jesse from Harper’s lap. “It’s all right, lad,” the general said as he helped Harper from the saddle himself. “We saw most of it from the ramparts. God’s bloody wounds, we couldn’t do a thing!” He looked at Elinore and seemed to remember himself. “Beg pardon.” He peered closer. “Nell Mason, is it?”

She shook her head. “Elinore Randall now. Please, sir, can you take them to the hospital?”

“We can and will, little lady.” He turned to the lieutenant hovering close by. “Allenby, find this lady a quiet corner with a bed and a fireplace.”

“No. I will go with them,” she said, her voice calm. “General, can you tell me how soon someone will be able to retrieve the…the others from the plain?”

Picton’s aide-de-camp made a small gesture, and spoke quietly to his commander, who nodded, his eyes troubled now. “As soon as we can, my dear.” He put his hand on her shoulder, and there was no mistaking the tenderness of his expression. “I don’t know when I’ve seen such a brave display, Mrs. Randall. We can all be proud of Captain Mason.”

“And Private Wilkie,” she said, not even daring to look at Harper.

He nodded. General Picton stood in silence beside her as Jesse was lowered onto a stretcher. The surgeon’s eyes fluttered, then opened. He raised his hand, and Elinore came to his side and bent close.

“He has a request, General,” she said, stepping back.

“Find Major Bones,” Jesse whispered. He tried to raise himself up. “Find him now!”

She could tell that General Picton was startled by the fervency of Jesse’s demand. “I’m certain that can be arranged, Captain, but surely it can wait until you feel more…”

“Find him before I turn Private Harper loose to look.” He lay down again, exhausted. “Or Elinore. We have a vast grievance, General.”

S
he finally allowed Picton’s aide-de-camp to escort her to a guest room after General Picton’s personal physician assured her that all Dr. Randall really needed now was to know that she was taken care of. She kissed Jesse, and walked down the hall, listening to Harper’s strenuously insisting that he could wait for treatment until Captain Randall felt well enough to sew his arm. “I wonder who will win that argument, Mrs. Randall?” the ADC asked, amused.

“Private Harper,” she replied serenely.

“Surely you are wrong,” he exclaimed.

“Private Harper, by all means.”

She woke in late afternoon, gentled from sleep by a maid quietly dipping hot water into a tin tub. She allowed the woman to wash her hair, then dismissed her and bolted the door so she could bathe in peace and cry into the bath-water. Unable to stop herself, she suffered through a peculiar range of emotions from deep anger at her father, to helplessness in the fate of war, to a strange sense of comfort. Papa, if I ever had doubts about your love, they are gone now, she thought.

She didn’t know who to thank for the clean clothing. There was also a comb and brush, which only made her cry again for some reason. More than anything, she wanted to run down the hall to the hospital and find her husband. Instead, she sat close to the fire and combed every knot and snarl out of her hair, which left her scalp smarting.

She dressed quickly, eager to see Jesse. When she opened the door, she was surprised to see a sentry there. She stared at him doubtfully. “I am not under arrest, am I?”

“No, ma’am,” he assured her. “Captain Randall insisted
on a guard. If you care to come with me, I will take you to him.”

As they left the hall, she realized she was staying in guest chambers attached to the cathedral school of Ciudad Rodrigo. Soldiers swarmed everywhere. “Ours is the rear guard of the retreat,” he explained. “The officers’ ladies and camp followers have gone ahead to Lisbon and the lines.”

“And the French at the Douro?”

He shrugged. “They seem reluctant to advance.”

Then why did they even care about us, she thought bitterly and felt her weariness returning. They crossed the courtyard in silence to the former guildhall, even now subject to the noise of carpenters and other mechanics. “Old Nosey aims to leave behind a substantial force.” The sentry permitted himself a smile. “When we return in the spring, I think he wants no more retreating.”

At the guildhall, the sentry took her up a flight of stairs and past an entire row of sentries until the door opened on division headquarters. She sighed with relief to see Jesse sitting there, his feet propped on a hassock, a pillow behind his head. He looked at her, but his expression remained serious. Harper sat next to him, looking distinctly uncomfortable, the only private in a roomful of brass. Without thinking, she looked for Wilkie: her eyes filled with tears.