Pleasures of a Notorious Gentleman (35 page)

“I did have a bit of luck, though,” Ainsley said now.

Stephen tried to give the appearance that he had a care for whatever it was his brother was blabbering about, but he was once again lost in the memories of Mercy. The way she could look at him with a slight tilting of her head, a mischievousness in her whiskey eyes that spoke of her being both a lady and a vixen. Innocent yet knowledgeable. Sweet and yet tart. Demure and yet daring.

Fancy had become as skilled as he in the art of seduction, and yet he’d not even bothered to kiss her since she’d been re-introduced into his life. He knew of a time when he’d barely been able to keep his hands off her. But he had no desire at all to marry her, even if she was John’s mother.

“I discovered a sergeant who served under you. Gent named Mathers. Name mean anything?”

“Mathers?” Stephen rolled the name around in his head, hoping it would latch on to some shred of memory. Tall or short? Fat or thin? He couldn’t envision the man. He could draw up nothing from the dark recesses of his mind. “No.”

“He’ll be at the White Stallion tonight if you want to buy him a pint.”

Stephen glanced over his shoulder at Ainsley. “And what would be the point in that?”

“To begin filling in the holes of your memory.”

B
usiness was brisk and the crowds boisterous at the White Stallion, but Stephen managed to locate an empty table in a far corner. He thought he should be excited at the prospect of talking with someone who had fought beside him. Hadn’t he for months now wanted to know exactly what had happened, what he didn’t remember?

Instead he wondered if there would be more surprises, things he wished he didn’t know. Like the fact that Mercy was truly not John’s mother.

Why had she never encouraged Stephen to seek the truth about his time in the Crimea? What did she truly know? Her parting words resounded through his head, made an icy shiver race up his back.

I have a wish for you, dear husband. I pray you never remember what happened in Scutari. For if you do, you will never forgive yourself.

What had happened? What had he done? Why could he not remember?

He’d hoped Fancy could shed some light on the matter, but she spoke only of her experiences there, of their time together. If she had a clue regarding precisely to what Mercy had been referring, Fancy was skilled at pretending she didn’t. What the devil had happened over there?

Suddenly, a large, strapping fellow blocked his view of the establishment. His jacket was brown tweed, one of the arms pinned up as it was not needed. The man’s long brown hair appeared a bit ragged, but it was obvious he’d recently shaved and his brown eyes were somber. They were the eyes of a man who’d seen a good deal more horror than most men. Stephen was taken aback by the kinship he felt with this stranger.

“Good to see you, Major,” the man said in a voice that even when spoken low still boomed. “Or I s’pose I should say Sir Stephen. I saw in the
Times
where you got knighted. Well-deserved, sir.”

Stephen almost asked, “Was it?” Instead, he took a chance and said, “Good to see you, too, Mathers. Join me.”

The man took a chair and Stephen had the serving girl bring over a pint.

“I’m sorry to see you lost your arm,” he said somberly, wondering if he should have known that.

Mathers shrugged. “Would have lost me life if not for you, sir. I swear you were a bloody heathen out on the battlefield. You were a sight to see. Gave no quarter. Then carrying me off the field under fire. Not just me. Others too, I hear, but that was after my time.” He lifted the tankard. “Still, to the boys of the Light Brigade, sir.”

Stephen tapped his mug against Mathers’s. “To the Light Brigade.”

They sat in silence for a few moments. It was obvious Mathers was lost in reflections. Stephen wanted to know the path his mind traveled. Perhaps he should tell him where he stood—with no memories at all. Here was a man who could tell him anything he wanted to know about his time in the Crimea.

“I don’t remember you, Mathers.”

The man rubbed his head. “Well, sir, I don’t know what to say to that. I’d never considered myself an easy bloke to forget, what with my size and all.”

“I was wounded, you see. You came back without your arm, and I came back without part of my mind.”

“You mean, you don’t remember nuthin’?”

“Nothing at all.”

Mathers seemed to ponder that revelation. “I’d heard you took a cannonball to the head.”

“Not sure if I’d still have my head if that was the case, but something happened.”

“If you don’t mind me saying so, sir, it might not feel like it, but it’s a blessing. It was awful out there, sir. Awful. I hear there’s nearly five thousand buried in the cemetery near the hospitals in Scutari.”

“Five thousand,” Stephen whispered. How had he forgotten something that had to have been horrendous? “They’re expecting peace any day now.”

“Yes, sir. I pray for it.” He shook his head. “We were so bloody cocky when we marched off. Held our own, though, sir. But, God help us. What a price.”

Again they fell into silence as though the words that needed to be said were too heavy. Finally, Stephen asked, “Tell me, Mathers, do you remember a nurse, a nurse named Mercy?”

Mathers shook his head. “Sorry, sir. Can’t say as I do, but then I weren’t nearly as familiar with the nurses as you were. I remember there was always at least one at your bedside.”

“But I’m interested in one in particular. Mercy,” Stephen insisted. “Mercy Dawson.”

Mathers grinned. “Miss Dawson. Yes, sir. Remember her well. An angel she was. If I may say so, she worked as tirelessly as Miss Nightingale. Many a night I heard her praying over a lost soul. Shame what happened to her that bloody night. Can’t believe she didn’t leave straightaway, but she was there the next time I was wounded. Held my hand when they took my bloody arm.”

Stephen felt an uneasiness that he couldn’t explain. He didn’t want to think about what Mathers had suffered. He was a big brute of a man who’d not welcome sympathy. But something else he’d mentioned had Stephen breaking out in a cold sweat. “What happened to her, Mathers?”

“She was attacked, sir. Fortunate for her that we got there when we did, you and me, although I’m a-betting she was a-wishing we’d gotten there before the first blackguard was finished with her and the second was queuing up.”

Stephen’s stomach roiled. Mathers couldn’t be implying what Stephen thought he was. Mercy had told him that he’d arrived there in time. He’d saved her. Were they lining up to hit her?
No, you damned fool, they wouldn’t line up for that. They’d only line up if what they were doing allowed only one man at a time
—

God, he thought he was going to be ill. He took another chance, praying that this time he wasn’t wrong. “We gave them a sound beating, didn’t we, Mathers?”

“We did, sir. Especially the first blighter. Thought you were going to kill him. Maybe you did. He didn’t leave the field following the next battle. But then neither did the other two. I made damned sure one of them didn’t. Either you or the Russians took care of the third. My money was always on you.” He leaned back, blew out a quick breath. “Whew! I never before confessed to what I done. It’s a bit of a relief to have it off my chest.”

Mathers looked at him expectantly, as though he wanted a reciprocated confession.

“Sorry, man. As I said, I don’t remember . . . any of it. But I’ve no doubt that what you did was the right thing to do. And I hope I had your courage to see justice done.”

Mathers nodded and stared into his tankard. Then he tossed back what remained and ordered another.

After it arrived, Stephen asked, “What of Miss Whisenhunt? Did you know her?”

Mathers scratched his jaw. “Yeah, she was a real beauty, but she weren’t as caring as Miss Dawson. It always seemed like she thought of everything as a chore. I know it was work, all of it, everything they did. None of it was fun. But Miss Dawson always made it seem as though she was glad to be able to do something to ease a man’s suffering. Always smiling with a gentleness in her eyes that reminded a man of home, reminded him why he was fighting. I think many a soldier fell in love with her, sir. I wonder what happened to her.”

“She had the misfortune of becoming my wife.”

“W
here the devil is she?”

Startled from her relaxing pose on the fainting couch, her bare feet in Leo’s lap where they were receiving his devoted attention, his mother glared at Stephen standing in the doorway. “Good evening to you as well. I daresay you look like hell.”

“Where is she?” he repeated, in no mood to suffer through her taunting.

She must have realized it because she answered quickly, “The blue bedchamber.”

He rushed up the stairs, taking the steps two at a time, the length of his stride torturing his leg, but he ignored it. When he arrived at the correct bedchamber, he threw open the door with such force that it banged against the wall.

Mercy leaped up from the chair by the window where she’d been reading, the book falling to the floor with a soft thud. He could see her trembling in the white linen nightdress, her bare toes curling into the carpet. He saw the moment she regained her composure and straightened her backbone. She’d not be cowed by him. He couldn’t see her being cowed by anyone.

He imagined some brute lifting her hem, spreading those sweet thighs—

“You lied to me about not lying to me.” He took a step closer, and she held her ground. Brave, courageous Mercy. She’d been there to help the soldiers, to ease their suffering. If the men who’d attacked her weren’t already dead, he’d tear them apart with his bare hands. He’d never felt so barbaric. Was this what he’d learned on the battlefield? “You told me I got there in time to stop them, in time to save you. I didn’t.”

She went as pale as snow and quivered as though she’d just been dunked in an icy river. Tears spilled onto her cheeks. Reaching behind her, she grabbed onto the back of the chair, needing something to support her. Any other woman who looked on the verge of collapse would have succumbed to her body’s need. But not her. Somehow she found the strength to continue standing, just as she’d found the strength to return to the hospital, to care for the men. Courageous Mercy. His Mercy.

“Tell me you don’t remember. Please, dear God, tell me you don’t remember my shame and humiliation.”

“I don’t. Not a single second of what happened to you. But it was not your shame and humiliation, Mercy. It was theirs. For God’s sake, why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why would I? For the love of all that is holy, why would I want you to remember such an ugly, ugly . . .”

Tears rained down her face. She sank onto the chair and buried her face in her hands, her shoulders quaking with the force of her sobs. He wanted to touch her, to comfort her, but he’d sacrificed that right. He’d doubted her, and in so doing he’d doubted all that was virtuous. He’d hoped war had turned him into a better man, but it was her, everything he knew about her that called to him to be a finer person than he’d ever thought himself capable of being.

“If you hadn’t held me afterward, touched me so tenderly, comforted me, I’m not sure I would have ever been able to stand the touch of another person.” She lifted dew-filled eyes. “Nothing happened beyond that. Between you and I. A little touching, gentle caresses. On my face and my hands. Here.” She touched just below her collarbone. “Where the first one tore at my bodice and gouged me. You kissed it. You murmured such sweet words. We only had until dawn. But you never left my side. You had Mathers find us a room. You washed . . . so tenderly where the brutish man had been. I made a vow to myself that I would find a way to repay you for your kindness.”

“Kindness? Mercy, any man would have come to your rescue—”

“Only any man didn’t. You did. When Fancy told me she was carrying your child, and she had to leave, I went with her to ensure she was taken care of. When she told me that she didn’t want John, I could hardly believe it. I told her I would take him. Then we saw your name on the list of the dead. We argued over what to do. John was all that remained of you. One morning I awoke to discover Fancy was gone and John was still there. I knew I had to bring him to your family. It was all I ever intended. You must believe that.”

His heart was shattering one word at a time. “I do, Mercy. You don’t have to say more.”

“He was so like you. I fell in love with him a little bit more each day. I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving him. So I said I was his mother, because I thought no one with any decency would separate a child from his mother. When I learned you were alive, I feared if I confessed to not being his mother, that you would find fault with me and not want your son around a woman who spouted lies. So I continued with the charade.”