Carla Kelly (7 page)

She responded with a firmer grip of her own. “Major Sheffield tells me you have been raising money,” she said.

“I have only thirty-two pounds, and we’ve exhausted our resources,” he told her.

“There’s another ten pounds in the hospital funds,” Sheffield said. “I will authorize its use.”

“Forty-two pounds is still not enough,” Jess said. He loosened his grip on her, and was nearly overwhelmed with emotion when she increased hers. At this moment, she is as dependent as a baby, he thought. “Even if we were by some miracle to raise the sum, we have no idea what more money Bones has. I fear he could trump us without even flickering an eyelid.”

He was sure that a lesser woman would have dissolved in tears. Nell did not. If anything, his bracing words stiffened her back. “What do you recommend I do, sir?” she asked, her voice calm now. “I am open to any suggestion, no matter how farfetched.”

This was his moment. His heart pounded so loud under his waistcoat that he knew the passing artillery could hear it. “Marry me, Nell. Bones can’t touch you then.”

Sheffield burst into laughter. “Oh, bold stroke, Jesse,” he exclaimed. “Nell, it’s crazy, but I must agree. Nell?”

The silence continued. Jess was almost afraid to look at her. She had not withdrawn her hand from his, but he was clutching hers so tightly that he wasn’t sure she could. He looked at her then, to find himself amazed that a pale face could go even paler. The color seemed gone even from her lips. As he watched, her color gradually returned. With it came a relaxation of her fingers in his hand.

To his ineffable, unspeakable pleasure, she inclined her head toward his. “You can’t possibly love me on such short notice,” she said, and there was no mistaking the amusement in her voice. It was as though he had diverted her momentarily from the more awful crisis looming, and she was savoring the respite, however transitory it might be.

Now what? he asked himself. If you say you have loved her these two years, chances are she will not believe you. After all, you have done nothing to show her any affection: no flowers, no chocolates, no lingering drawing room visits, no teasing notes. You have only handed her emesis basins, and accepted gut reeled off suturing spools. The only notes were receipts for medicines you have taught her to compound.
Flowers? When did you last see a flower that had not been trampled by gun carriages or the cavalry?

No, I dare not say how long I have loved you, he thought. You would think me a lunatic, and surely no woman craves a lunatic for a bedfellow. “Nell, I must admit that the idea for this proposal is of quite recent origin,” he said, and that was true enough. “But do you know, it’s not such a bad idea.”

He could have groaned out loud. How
do
other men propose, he asked himself. Surely not in a hospital tent with people listening, and guns rumbling by outside, and, for all he knew, a lecher bent on ruin with his ear to the canvas. Here I am telling this darling, this angel, that it’s not a bad
idea
?

To his amazement, Nell still did not withdraw her hand from his. Granted, she was shaking her head, but there was something in her eyes now besides despair. “I suppose you will tell me that I’m a real game goer, and that you like me a lot,” she said.

“Well, I do,” he said, simply. It was vacuous in the extreme, but something told him it was right. “It would be the protection you need right now.”

The expression in her eyes told him that just for a moment, she truly had forgotten about the threat of Major Bones. “Wellington left this morning, didn’t he?” she asked.

“I believe he did, Nell, along with his staff.”

“We already know there are no officers’ wives in this corps who care particularly what happens to Audrey Mason’s daughter.”

“I fear that is so.”

“Things do have a way of getting lost or coming up missing during a retreat.” She shivered, and he felt the same cold chill. With everyone concerned for his own regiment, and looking over his shoulder for Souham or Soult, no one would ever wonder what had become of Elinore Mason—until Major Bones ruined her.

“Again you are right.”

She appealed to the Chief. “Major Sheffield, is this a good idea?” she asked.

“Completely,” the surgeon said, and Jess closed his eyes in relief. “I am certain that Captain Randall would agree
that should you change your mind by the time we reach the Portuguese lines, he would accept an annulment. Right, Jess?”

Never, he thought. Not in a whole year of Sundays. “Certainly, sir. You can depend upon it,” he lied.

“I will do it then,” she said in a rush, as if afraid too much thought would allow common sense to triumph. Her face clouded over then. “But aren’t there banns to cry, or a special license? Can you find a minister? You’re not even Protestant, are you?”

He didn’t have any answers to her rapid questions except the last one. “No, I’m not,” he replied. “Did you ever meet a more inconsiderate Scot from the land of porridge and John Knox?”

She smiled at that. “No, I did not. Why should I worry about something like dogma at a time like this?” She shook her head in wonder. “Dear me, do you realize I am behaving in a far more ramshackle way than even my parents would have contemplated?” She looked at the Chief again, and there was no mistaking her pleading glance. “Can’t we think of anything else?”

Jess held his breath, then let it out slowly as Sheffield’s silence lengthened. “I suppose I am no bargain, Nell,” he began.

“Nonsense,” Sheffield said. “You’re an excellent surgeon!”

“That’s not the issue,” he said quietly.

“Perhaps not,” Sheffield replied. He turned to Nell. “My dear, I have no idea what kind of a husband he will prove to be, but let me assure you, at the moment he is damned useful and you are in a bad spot.”

She looked from one man to the other. Tears welled in her eyes and Jess felt his heart turn over. Suddenly she was eleven again, and had no more blue beads left to give. “You’ll have to trust me, Nell,” he told her, his voice scarcely more than a whisper. “I will abide by whatever you say when we reach the Portuguese border, and make it right, but you need me now.”

“I do,” she said after another long moment. She looked across the hospital tent. “I wish there would be a time in my life when I did not have to depend upon the goodwill of others. Do you ever wish life was fair?”

“All the time,” he answered. He kissed her hand before
she could take it from his arm. “I would have gone to the University of Edinburgh with the Protestants. By God, Nell, if life were fair, none of my patients would ever die.”

He hadn’t meant to sound vehement, but her question bit deep all of a sudden. I am a dog, he thought as the tears spilled onto her cheeks. I will not be surprised if she slaps me, turns on her heel, and marches out of here.

She did not. Her expression softened then. “I never considered that,” she said. She squared her shoulder then, and the movement touched him deeper than anything else she could have done just then. “Lead on, Chief. Let us find a chaplain.” She tucked her arm through Sheffield’s, and made no comment when the chief surgeon blew his nose loudly and muttered something about dust in the air.

With a wave, he saw them off: Sheffield with a firm grip upon Nell Mason and a light enough step to avoid the increasing traffic streaming past the hospital. He stood at the tent’s opening and watched them, Nell so graceful even though her cloak was old and patched. She raised the hem of her dress in a fruitless attempt to keep it out of the mud, and he stared at her ankles, so trim even in much-darned stockings. Oh, Mother, I am marrying a woman with nothing more than the dress she stands in, he thought. Her father is a scamp and her mother was a fool. She has not one of those accomplishments that should be the birthright of any lady I marry, but by all the saints, I couldn’t have done better. Mother, I know you will come to love her. Thank you, Major Bones, you bastard.

Jenks was asleep and breathing more steadily than he had since Bones’ harsh visit the day before, so Jess remained in the tent opening. He had seen retreats enough to not fear now when the regiment seemed to untangle itself from a thousand knots and pull out. He waved at the brother officers he was acquainted with, nodding at their words of “See you behind the lines, Surgeon!” and calling back comments of his own.

The road was quiet then for a time, and then the next regiment moved up, to bivouac under the trees nearer the river. He knew they could remain there a few hours, or all night, to be followed by another regiment, and then it would be the marching hospital’s turn to move out under the protection of the division’s last regiment.

“Where is she?”

He wondered if he had been dozing on his feet, a skill learned early at the University of Milan. Major Bones stood beside him. He must have been dozing, because the man had obviously dismounted from the horse that was practically chewing on Jess’s sleeve. He pulled his arm away. “Who?” he asked, and felt instantly stupid.

“Bertie Mason’s daughter, you clunch,” Bones said, biting off each word. “My batman went to help her pack, and she bolted like a hare, he told me. I can’t imagine why she would be here, either, but I can’t find her anywhere else.”

“She said your batman snatched away her belongings and frightened her.”

Bones muttered an oath, turned away, and mounted his horse, crowding it forward until Jess was forced to step back. “You are a puny little man,” he said. “A woman would be crazy to look to you for protection.”

“People do unusual things when they are desperate,” he said quietly.

Bones grinned at that. “I’ll agree,” he said. “You should have seen Bertie Mason an hour ago, scurrying around trying to borrow money off everyone he knows! The trouble is, everyone knows Bertie too well. Now he has given up the notion of looking for money and hared himself away in the sutler’s tent for gin. It’s an ugly sight.”

“Bones, you are a bully,” Jess said.

He waited for the horse to knock him flat, but the major only laughed. “I certainly am, Captain Puke Basin.” He leaned over in the saddle until Jess could smell the reek of gin on him, too. “I get what I want, which is more than you ever will.”

Dan called to him from inside the tent, and he turned away. “I’ll find her, Captain,” Bones called. “Just give me a week with her, and she’ll be a happy woman. She’ll crawl after me begging for more, something you could never hope for, eh?”

Jess shuddered. I’ve seen what men like you do to helpless women, especially if they are poor and have no protection. I wonder that the Spanish call men like you allies, after you and your like take a village in all the ways you can imagine.

Jenks must have heard the major’s voice, because he was
hyperventilating again. It took all of Jess’s patience with the bellows, and a greater dose of laudanum than he cared to give to calm the soldier this time. “I would really rather use our hospital funds to find a Sicilian willing to pull Major Bones’ liver and lights out through his rectum,” he murmured to Dan. Sorry, Hippocrates, but once in a while I would like to do some harm.

He knew that Bones must be watching the hospital tent, even though he could not see him. He hoped that Nell and Sheffield would not return from their search for a chaplain. To his relief, an hour later a boy from the village came into the tent. Dan noticed him and gestured him forward.

With a terrified glance at the men on the cots, he ran into the tent, threw a message down in front of Jess, and ran out again. “Do you suppose he has heard rumors about how bad hospital food is?” Dan joked. “I wish I knew enough Spanish to tell him that we haven’t lost more than ten or twelve muddy little boys in a day or two!”

The message was written in Latin on Sheffield’s receipt pad. Jess wondered if the chief surgeon was enjoying the intrigue of the whole affair. He had to admire Sheffield’s flair, and feel not a little proud that the man knew he could write Jess in Latin. Safe from enemy hands, he thought. He read it, then looked at Dan. “You’re in charge for a few minutes. I’m to take my medical satchel and leave as though intent upon an errand of mercy to Marching Hospital Number Three. Wish I had a wedding ring for Nell.” And I wish I were taller, and braver, and certainly better-looking.

He ran back to his tent and grabbed his satchel, pausing before his mirror to run his fingers through his hair and wish he had taken the time earlier to shave. At least he was wearing one of his better shirts. Well, I have all my hair, he thought, and he took another look. My teeth are mine. I can only hope that she won’t mind being married to someone who looks so…so
earnest
. There wasn’t another word for his expression that he could think of. Perhaps it was better than diligent or dutiful, he told himself as he shouldered his satchel and set out.

He knew Bones was watching. He stopped in the road, then turned back and summoned the stretcher bearers. Now I’ll just have to find someone to load on this for the return trip, he thought.

Tent already folded and packed, the wounded on wagons, Number Three was ready to pull out. He didn’t bother to look over his shoulder for Bones, but went directly to Colonel Ipswich, a surgeon he had respected for years. “Sir?” he asked. “Can you direct me to Major Sheffield?”

“I’ll do better than that,” the surgeon said, and indicated the dead tent, where the able-bodied were even now loosening the tent pegs. “There are some of us who heard about your proposal, Captain, and have put a wager on whether you will overcome your charming shyness enough to say yes.”

Jess laughed. “I am surprised you are not offering condolences that Bertie Mason will be my father-in-law.”

The other surgeon winked. “As to that, rumor has it that Captain Randall is well juiced enough to keep Bertie in the style he would like to become accustomed to.” He came closer. “I hear it is your present poverty, and everyone else’s, which seems to be bringing about this wedding, eh? I say you’re carrying a good deed too far. Won’t your parents be chagrined to learn that their promising son married a woman practically standing in her shimmy? Lord, my parents would die of shock.”