Healing the Soldier's Heart. Lily George

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СКАЧАТЬ She was tired, too. And addled a bit. And rattled, if she were to admit the truth. She had just agreed to help the ensign regain the power of speech—the very thing he lost on a Belgian battlefield. It was no small promise and no small task. And what if she failed? She said a silent prayer for help and for hope. She would need a great deal of both in the coming weeks.

      His lordship’s fashionable townhome—situated right in the heart of the Crescent—loomed up ahead of them. If his lordship saw her with the ensign, there might be trouble. Servants—even high-placed governesses—were supposed to conform to certain kinds of behavior. And even though her relationship with the ensign was entirely above-board, she wasn’t about to do anything foolish that might cause talk.

      “We can stop here. The house is just about a block away, and I don’t want to get into any kind of trouble,” Lucy explained in haste, heat flooding her cheeks. “His lordship wants his female servants to remain unmarried, and so I don’t want to do anything to stir up gossip. Not that it would. Or that it should—” She broke off, feeling like an utter fool.

      He patted her shoulder. “V-very well,” he responded. He took her hand in his and raised it to his lips for a brief, chaste kiss. “Th-th-ank you, M-Miss Williams.” He bowed, releasing her hand.

      Butterflies chased themselves around her stomach, and she struggled to remain composed. Outwardly composed, that was. “Of course, Ensign.” She bobbed a curtsy. “And thank you for the pleasure of your company. I can assure you, I spend many of my days off traipsing around the booksellers, hoping to scout a new volume. It was a rare treat to have pleasant company with which to share my day off instead of being all alone.” Botheration. Now she sounded like a dried-up old spinster. If only she had as much gift for pretty speeches with Rowland as she did with Cantrill—but then, she didn’t care about Cantrill.

      On the other hand, she suspected that she might be caring more about Rowland than she should.

      * * *

      Rowland stretched out on the settee in his humble flat, his mind spinning. On the way back from walking Lucy home and then for the better part of the afternoon, he had replayed their conversation—well, her conversation with him—in his mind. That she was willing to help him, that she cared enough about a fellow human being to offer assistance—that alone was enough to fill him with gratitude. But he couldn’t stop thinking of Lucy as she read and as she spoke to him.

      She had a certain manner of flicking her glance sideways—a sharp look out the corner of her eye that sent his heart racing. There was no coquetry in this gesture. It was not practiced. It was simply part of who she was, but it was enough to send his heart pounding every time she did so. He was much happier concentrating on how this glance made his heart leap than in dwelling on her words from their walk to the Crescent. But, unbidden, they crept back into his mind. Her clear, dulcet tones asking, “Do you want to regain the power to speak, sir?”

      No one had asked him that. Everyone assumed he did, but no one asked him in such a direct and forthright manner before. The doctors in Belgium had scratched their heads at his predicament, and after his superficial wounds healed, had sent him on his way. “He’ll speak when he’s ready,” they pronounced.

      Back home in Essex, Mother threw her hands up in despair. “You’re just being stubborn,” she wailed. “Your sister Mary can’t find a match—not with her stammer. And you—you were our only hope. Be a man, like your other brothers in arms. Look at Captain Brookes, missing a leg. And now he’s married and running the family farm! Look at Lieutenant Cantrill, supporting himself in Bath. And you, barely wounded, can’t get a position anywhere because you won’t speak? James—our family is in desperate circumstances!” And so it had been until Macready, Rowland’s closest friend in the 69th, had invited him to share his flat in Bath as he recovered from his battle scars.

      Among his brethren soldiers, his inability to speak was a given, as much as his green eyes or blond hair. It was a part of him, much as the others now carried more visible scars of the war. And yet none of them had asked him if he wanted to recover, just as they were recovering thanks to the curative waters of Bath. Cantrill had gone so far as to recruit Lucy for the job without asking Rowland if that’s what he wanted.

      He brought his booted foot down hard on the floor, the force of the blow smashing a china plate as it fell from the mantel. He gazed at the fragments. They were as jagged as the pieces of his life. His lack of ability to flirt with Lucy, or even chat about mundane topics like the weather, drove him to distraction.

      He grasped his head in his hands, willing his temper to stay controlled. No one understood what he wanted. No one had bothered to ask before.

      No one, that was, but Lucy. She respected his privacy, acknowledged his right not to get well. And that spoke volumes about her character.

      The front door banged open. “Rowland? Are you here?” Macready’s voice, hale and hearty despite his many wounds, echoed throughout the little flat.

      Rowland grunted. Macready must be back from taking the waters.

      “So, how was the meeting?” Macready limped in, discarding his jacket on a nearby leather chair. “You look like you are having a bit of a study. If your forehead had any more lines, you could compose music upon it.”

      “Funny,” Rowland replied, keeping his tone sarcastic. He didn’t want to share everything about Lucy yet. Certainly not her beauty or her sparkling character. Macready, with his Black Irish looks and his gift with words, might find her beguiling. He could charm her in ways that Rowland lacked—until he regained his power of speech.

      “I met Cantrill in the Pump Room. He mentioned that a certain Miss Williams read to you today and that you squired her back to her employer’s home in the Crescent,” Macready yammered on. He sank into a worn velvet chair, eyeing Rowland closely. Too closely. “He even said you spoke to the lady.”

      “Nothing much.” He kept his face turned toward the wall. If Macready saw how deeply he was flushing, he’d never hear the end of it.

      “But think of it, man! You haven’t spoken a word to anyone besides myself and Cantrill since La Sainte Haye. This is an amazing accomplishment. You are on the road to recovery. I think this Miss Williams is excellent medicine, you know.”

      “She’s not.” She was much more than a pretty face or a pleasing diversion. Macready made it sound as though she had worked her feminine wiles on him and gotten her way. What transpired was much more profound and deeply shaking than that. But trying to say that aloud—why, it would sound beyond ridiculous. So he merely settled for shrugging his shoulders.

      “You know, I think you’ve been much too hard on yourself, Rowland. Think of it. Most of us were far too young to be in the military. I was twenty. How old were you? Eighteen? We were green as grass and broke formation. That’s how the Frenchies were able to get the best of us.” Macready paused, rubbing his battered arm. “Hiding in the rye as we did, well, that was simple survival. We had almost no chance against the cavalry.”

      Well, they had hidden. That much was true. But while Macready lay delirious from dreadful wounds, Rowland had been awake and fully alert when he played dead. Like a coward. He had feigned death to the point that the peasants who came to collect them after battle thought he had died. And he didn’t cry out for help but remained mute even as his body was loaded onto a cart bound for Brussels.

      The shame of his deception burned strong, deeper perhaps than any physical wound he could have sustained at Waterloo. And there was nothing he could do to right the wrong. His inability to speak seemed as though no more than justice. There was, after all, СКАЧАТЬ