The Officer and the Proper Lady (15 page)

Julia began to work on the wounds with the warm water he brought her, a good handful of salt dissolved in it.

‘Salt water helps too,' George explained, leaving her to it and going across to see to Max. ‘Don't know why that works either, but you take a horse with sores on its legs and walk it in the sea, it'll heal faster than one you don't.'

It would be worse with a gunshot she realized, making herself look dispassionately at what she was doing. A shot would force fabric deep into the flesh, a slashing wound did not. She worked her way up to his chest, laying linen cloths over each clean part of his body as she finished it to keep the flies off. As she started to work on the cut and bruised contusion where the notebook had been, Hal opened his eyes, dark, almost black with pain.

‘Go away,' he croaked. ‘Should be in Antwerp.'

‘No,' she said firmly. ‘We will make you better. Drink this.' It was clean water from Madame's big kettle mixed with brandy. She slid one arm under his head to raise him a little and held it to his lips, watching some faint colour come back into his face as he swallowed an entire horn beaker full.

‘Don't want you. Go away.'

I must not be hurt by his words,
she told herself.
He's in pain, he doesn't know what he is saying.

‘Julia.' His eyes were fixed on her face now, clear and forceful. Hal knew exactly what he was saying, she realized. ‘Who knows you are here?'

‘Captain Grey, Rick Bredon, my landlady,' she said, puzzled. ‘The baron helped me stay in Brussels.'

‘Rick and Will can keep their mouths shut. You can bribe the landlady. Go back to Brussels now, Julia. Go to the baron.'

‘We cannot move you yet,' she said with more calm than she was feeling. ‘George is going to sew up your wounds and then you must rest. All I have is the gig, you see, and I don't think we can move you in that yet, there isn't enough room for you to lie down.'

‘Leave me,' he said urgently. His right hand moved as though to take her wrist and he gasped at the sudden pain. ‘It is bad enough as it is, but you'll be ruined if you spend the night here.'

‘It doesn't matter!'

‘Yes it does! If you stay, I will have to marry you. If I live. And you cannot marry me.'

She sat back on her heels, staring at him. ‘You will live,' she said as though she could make it so by force of will. ‘You cannot give up. Do you hear me?'

‘Yes, I hear you. You should not be here. It was…foolish. Wrong. I have no desire to marry. Not you.' The vehemence of his words exhausted him.

Julia sat dumbly looking at the gaunt bruised face, the thin white lips, the closed eyes, and she struggled not to give way to tears.
Foolish? No desire to marry… Not you.
Was he trying to drive her away with words as weapons? Perhaps he was. Hal Carlow did not know her very well, if that was so. ‘Unfortunately, Major Carlow, you are going to have to
put up with me,' she said flatly. ‘I cannot leave you here or you will die and I do not want that on my conscience. When George is finished with Max, he will start on you. Do you want some more brandy?'

The bruised eyelids dragged open. ‘Max?'

‘He is all right, just some cuts,' Julia reassured him, trying not to feel jealous of a horse. ‘Drink this,' she added, putting the flask to his lips. He was going to need it. She only wished she could drain it dry herself.

 

Somehow she got through the stitching without having to rush outside to be ill again, chiefly by telling herself that if Hal had to put up with it, then she certainly could. She suspected that her presence—snipping each knot for George, then bandaging behind his seemingly endless row of stitches—was preventing Hal from venting his feelings in bad language: she just wished he would let go and faint.

When it was finished and she got shakily to her feet, Hal opened his eyes and looked at George. ‘Thank you.'

The groom grunted, then grinned. ‘You're easier than a horse, guv'nor: never tried to kick or bite once.' He began to tidy up his things, leaving Julia alone at Hal's side.

‘Who took my clothes off?'

‘We did, George and I. And don't look like that: your naked buttocks are not the worst thing I have seen today, believe me.' She had actually made him blush, she realized. ‘Oh for goodness sake!'

‘You aren't going, are you?' he said wearily. ‘You've been missing from home all day, you've been seen on the battlefield and now, unless you leave now, you'll be found here, nursing me. What were you thinking about? There is no hope for it: we are going to have to get married, Julia.'

‘I refuse.' Her hands were shaking. A bandage she was trying to roll up escaped from her trembling fingers and fell
into the scattered hay. ‘I do not want to marry a man who doesn't want me.' She realized she had held onto the memory of that ballroom kiss believing, deep down, that he wanted to marry her. And now it seemed, she had been wrong.

The look he gave her was long, hard and unwavering. ‘I never said I did not want you. I said it was wrong to marry you, but marry me you will. The lesser of two evils, perhaps. You have saved my life, Julia. Now you will take my name, whether you like it or not.'

J
ulia saw the first glimmerings of light and gave a little sob of exhausted relief. Somehow they had got through the night. Hal's pronouncement about marriage was almost the last coherent thing he said before slipping into a fever that had him tossing and muttering through the hours of darkness.

She and George had taken turns to sit by Hal's side, one bathing him with cool water while the other fetched fresh from the well behind the building. The water, by a miracle, seemed un tainted although the hot night air was foul.

Now, at last, it was light; the phantoms that had hung over her shoulder all night gibbering their messages of despair had fled with the dawn. Hal was going to live, she was beginning to hope, not just to tell herself she must believe it. Now the restlessness of the night had calmed, he felt cooler when she touched his brow, laid her hand on his chest.

And she must marry him, she had decided after wrestling all night with her conscience, her desires and plain common sense. She was compromised. If she had only herself to think about, then she would refuse him, should refuse him. But there were Mama and Phillip to think about. Must they
suffer because she had so hopelessly misunderstood Hal's true feelings? If she was ruined, then it would make their situation so much harder.

And Hal's strong sense of honour would be salved, she recognized that. Which had to be the real—the only—reason he was so in sis tent now. Whatever he said, he did not want her, she knew that. At least, he might
want
her at the most basic level that a man wanted a woman. But he did not love her. The kiss at the ball haunted her, like a book in a language she could not read. If only she was not so in experienced, if only she could under stand what that had meant to him.

George had pulled the gig into the hovel and now sat with his back against the upright supporting the wide opening, legs out stretched, one hand on the stock of the musket while he snored.

Julia dragged some hay into a heap by the side of Hal's bed, spread a blanket on top of it and curled up, trying to resign herself to this mess. She was going to marry a man whom she loved, but all that would bring him to the altar was his sense of honour. She had trapped him by compromising herself, but she found it hard to believe he would rather be dead than married. She could try and run away from him, she supposed. But she knew him too well now to believe he would let her go. This was where her heart and her desires warred with her revulsion against trapping him, how ever un wit tingly.

And what about Mama and Phillip? If she married Hal, she would be the daughter in law of an earl. Hal might be the second son, he might not have great personal wealth, but he had connections, those essential networks of patronage and influence that would shape her brother's life and ensure her mother would always be secure and at the heart of respectable Society. Duty again: if she had cavilled at Smyth, she could
hardly refuse such a match with all its advantages for the family she loved.

As a marriage prospect, Hal was far superior to any of the men she had held out hopes for. And he knew it, knew she wanted to marry. At least, she thought bitterly, he could not believe she had manufactured this battle to entrap him. What would marriage to Hal be like? The bedroom would be exciting; she knew that already. But everyday, domestic life? It was like trying to imagine a panther in a sitting room.

Her lids were closing, fight though she might to stay awake. When had she last slept? Julia tried to remember as the blissful darkness swept her away.

 

‘Quiet, you'll waken them.'

Julia knew the whispering voice, but she could not place it, nor why there was a man in her bed chamber. Nor why, as she shifted to get more comfortable, the bed was so lumpy.

And then she heard Hal's voice. ‘My God, I am glad to see you!'

She sat up with a jerk to find Will Grey, his arm in a sling, standing in the doorway with George.

‘Not half as glad as I am to see you both,' he said, grinning past her.

Julia twisted round, her feet tangling in the blanket. Hal was still flat on his back, looking like death. But not, as he had yesterday, as if he might actually die. He was grinning back at Captain Grey. ‘Have you got any clothes for me?'

‘No, but I've got food. And I can go and get you clothes.' He walked across and sat on the end of the make shift bed. ‘Good morning, Miss Tresilian. You have him, I see.'

‘He doesn't need clothes: he is not getting up,' she retorted, refusing to be drawn into an exchange of pleas an tries, trying not to flinch at the captain's choice of words. ‘Food would be
good, but a cart we can lay him out flat in would be better. And should you be riding about? What about your arm?'

‘Be careful,' Hal warned. ‘She'll set George on you with a needle and thread.'

‘I've already been stitched up, thank you very much,' Will said with a grimace. ‘And I can ride one-handed. The question is, are you fit to be moved?'

‘Damn it, yes.'

‘Damn it, no!' Julia scram bled to her feet. ‘He needs at least one more day and night before he is jolted over that road—if there's any road left. I heard the wounded being taken back yesterday, they were in agony.'

‘True enough.' Will Grey scratched his chin. ‘A horse litter would be best.'

‘We have two horses, if you and George can make a litter.'

‘And how do you propose to get back?' Hal demanded. ‘Walk?'

Julia glared at him. ‘If I have to. And stop talking, you are getting heated and your fever will get worse. Captain Grey, please come outside, you are over-exciting him.'

‘Will—'

‘In a minute. I think we have to accept that Miss Tresilian is in charge.' Captain Grey followed her out. ‘He is going to be a terrible patient, you realize that? The last time he was badly injured, he refused to rest until our commanding officer said he was tired of Lieutenant Carlow falling flat on his face every time he stood up and ordered him to bed.' He strolled away until they were well out of earshot of the hovel and leaned against a battered apple tree. ‘How serious is it?'

‘I am no doctor.' Julia bit her lip. ‘He was struck with a sabre over the heart, but it slid off something and sliced down through his ribs, his arm and his thigh. By some miracle, it missed any major blood vessels. We have got it clean and
stitched up, and his fever is down this morning, although I don't expect it will stay down if he will not rest. But there was a shell burst very close that knocked him off his horse: I don't know if there are any internal injuries. He is in a lot of pain, I think, but he will not admit it.'

‘He will tell me how he feels if I make him promise to in return for getting him back to Brussels as soon as possible,' Will said. ‘I think you are right, he should not be moved today. I will go and talk to him, then we can decide what is needed and I'll ride back to Brussels and fetch it. You can ride pillion with me. Then I'll come back and that groom and I can bring him back tomorrow if he's up to it.'

‘I will not leave him,' Julia said flatly. ‘I do not trust him an inch. He'll be bullying poor George into letting him get up, the minute my back is turned.'

Will gave her a quizzical look, but all he said was, ‘I'll go and speak to him now.'

Julia waited until he turned the corner of the shack, then ran to the other end, near where Hal's bed was, and put her ear to the wall. The planks that made the structure were full of knot holes and cracks and she could hear clearly.

‘How bad is it?'

‘Bloody,' Hal said his voice faint against the energy of Will Grey's.

‘Internal injuries?'

‘No, don't think so. I am not, so George informs me, passing blood. Hard to tell though, everything hurts. Ow! Stop that, damn it!'

‘Your toes all work,' Grey said calmly. ‘And your foot bends. And you can make a fist with your right hand to punch me with, even if you can't raise that arm. I don't think you've cut any tendons. It is muscle damage and you've got to keep the weight off that leg until it heals properly or you'll be
lame. So now, will you stop trying to move about and do as Miss Tresilian tells you?'

‘Will you please take her away?' Hal sounded desperate, Julia thought, her stomach a tight knot of misery.

‘No. For a start, I am not hauling a kicking and screaming female all the way back to Brussels; and secondly, I believe her when she says you aren't to be trusted. While you've got no trousers and her in the room, you'll stay put until I come back.'

He was silent for a moment, then added, ‘You know, I really thought you were going to propose to her.'

‘I told you why not. At the Richmonds' affair I made a right balls-up of it, trying to explain why I wasn't going to. Must have been mad. God, I am so angry with her I could put her across my knee. I will do, if I ever get well enough. And now I must marry her, she's too compromised for me not to—Will, what the devil will I do with a wife?'

Julia got to her feet and half ran down the path that led through what must once have been a tidy vegetable plot. She scrubbed the back of her hand across her eyes and blinked hard until the nearest apple tree came back into focus. That would teach her to eaves drop. Between them, they had compromised them selves and each other, and marriage, she supposed, was inevitable.

‘Are you all right?'

Julia turned to find Captain Grey looking grim.

‘No, not really,' she admitted. ‘But there's nothing to be done about it. Are you leaving now?'

He nodded. ‘I'll bring him clothes and I'll steal a cart if I have to and be back tomorrow. You'll make a good soldier's wife, Miss Tresilian.'

‘Thank you.' Praise indeed: it was just a pity she was not marrying a soldier who wanted her. ‘Take care of that arm, Captain Grey.'

Hal was lying with his eyes closed when she went back in, but he opened them at the sound of her soft foot steps.

‘Break fast?' she asked.

Hal grimaced. ‘Not hungry. Coffee—now, that I could drink.'

‘I'll go and make some,' George said from the back of the hovel, where he was tending the horses. ‘And I'll cook something. You need to eat, Miss Julia.'

‘Yes, you should.' Hal turned his head on the pillow and looked at her. ‘Are you all right?'

‘She needs more rest, begging your pardon, sir.' George stopped in the doorway and frowned at Hal. ‘Miss Julia was down nursing the wounded at that hotel of yours for two days, getting hardly any sleep and then coming down here yesterday—that made her sick to the stomach on top of everything else.'

 

‘What? Nursing for two days?' Hal looked from George's retreating back to Julia's set face. There were dark shadows under her eyes, her hair was escaping from its tight braids and she was pale with fatigue, not just, as he had assumed, the shock of seeing the battlefield. ‘What the devil was your mother thinking of?'

‘I gave her no choice. The baron has taken her and Phillip to Antwerp and I told him that if he did not help me to stay I would run away and get back to Brussels. The carriage was moving before she realized what I was doing.'

‘And where have you been staying?' he demanded. This was Julia, obedient, well-behaved, sheltered Julia, defying her mother, conniving with the baron, running away…

‘At our lodgings.' She began to move about the room, picking things up, moving basins. ‘Madame has stayed and George moved into the stables with the horse and gig the baron left us.'

‘But nursing?' Ladies did not do such things, not in public.

‘They started taking the wounded back to where they had been billeted, after the hospitals filled up,' she explained. ‘I knew where you and Captain Grey had lodged, and, I guessed, probably some of the other officers I had met at the Opera. So I went there and did what I could.'

Hal closed his eyes. He knew exactly what that would have been like. He knew the smells, the sights, the shock she would have been exposed to. But why? Why had she stayed when she could have got safe away?

His conscience told him: he had spoken of death, of not coming back. He had made her confront the reality of battle, and she, with the comfortable fictions of glory and flag-waving stripped away, had decided to do what she could against that tidal wave of horror. But for the wounded in general? Or for him? ‘And you worked there for two days?'

‘I went home at night. It was only sensible to sleep and eat and wash. I would be no use to anyone if I exhausted myself.'

‘No,' he agreed, unable to think of anything else to say. Would any young woman of her back ground, finding themselves in the same position, do what she had done? Honoria would, he suspected, if she was helping people she knew. But Verity would just crumple in the face of that much pain and squalor. And he had been comparing Julia with his younger sister. It seemed he had missed the steel in her backbone.

Julia sat down and began to check over her basket of bandages. ‘And then Captain Grey arrived and told me you were missing.'

‘So you came for me. Why, Julia?' Had his fears been realized? Had he let her tumble into love with him? Must he have that on his conscience as well?

‘Because I knew you,' she said, staring at him as though
he had asked a very stupid question. ‘How could I not? The battle was over and you had not come back. The chances were, if you had not been killed, that you were lying on the field somewhere with no medical help and would die.'

‘That applies to hundreds of men,' Hal said harshly, wondering why he needed to push her like this.

‘I couldn't help hundreds,' she explained, patient in the face of his anger. ‘But I might help one. One that I cared for.' He saw her closed expression and knew that was as close to a declaration of her feelings as he would get. ‘Even if you were dying, it would have been a comfort to your family to know you were cared for at the end.'