The Sergeant's Lady (23 page)

“I think,” he said at last, “they will be inclined to agree to whatever I ask at first, because of this.” He shifted his stump. “And then, when they see that you are respectable, I’m sure they’ll be willing to give you work, at least. It wouldn’t be the same as if we married, but I think it would be a better life for you and Anita than
this
.”

Anita awoke, and Juana gathered her in her arms before she could crawl into danger. “Must I answer now?”

He laughed, not without bitterness. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Then I will think on it. I never thought to leave Spain unless it was with Dan, but…I do not want to be passed from one man to another, and end with nowhere to go.” She stood, swaying awkwardly on the slippery straw with her arms burdened with the baby. “I will come every day. Thank you, Will.”

“No, Juana, thank
you
.” They exchanged wistful smiles. “I miss him, too, you know.”

She ducked her head and made her way toward the door.

Anna slowly recovered. Her arduous labor and the hemorrhage following the birth left her drained. At first, she did nothing but sleep and eat, as though she too were newborn. To her surprise, her milk came in, though it was meager to begin with, and she and Lucy took it in turns to nurse Arthur for the first fortnight of his life.

Her world narrowed down to her son. Lacking the strength to do more, she fed Arthur and marveled at his infant beauty. She lost track of time, beyond a vague awareness that the weather warmed and the days lengthened.

One morning Lucy carried Lilias in when the maid brought Arthur, and they fed the babies together.

“Lucy, what day is it?” Anna asked.

“The ninth of May. No, the tenth.”

“It is? I can hardly credit—it doesn’t seem possible that more than a month has passed.”

“Well, you’ve been quite ill—but look to your son if you doubt me. He didn’t grow so plump overnight, nor did he have that lovable smile.”

Smiling was Arthur’s newest accomplishment, gained in the last few days. Anna crooned nonsense words in hopes of generating the expression and was suitably rewarded.

“It’s so strange to see,” she said. “He looks so much like Wi—his father, but he smiles like James or Alec.”

Lucy shot her a level, warning look, but when she spoke her voice was mild. “Or you. You and James have identical smiles.”

“Do we? I hope mine isn’t so smug.” She glanced up, anxious that she’d offended her sister-in-law, but Lucy was smothering a laugh behind her hand.

Anna’s amusement faded quickly. It troubled her that so much time had passed with so little awareness of it on her part. “Lucy—has anything happened these past few weeks? Any battles, news of our family…anything?”

Lucy sobered as she lifted her daughter to her shoulder and patted her back. “All of our relations are well. Lord and Lady Dunmalcolm are in London for the Season, and Malcolm’s wife is increasing.”

Her demeanor was more serious than such pleasant family news warranted, and Anna suspected she was hiding something. “And the war?” she prompted.

Lucy sighed and looked away. “The army took Badajoz on the night Arthur was born, but the casualty list was dreadfully long. We had a letter from Alec yesterday. I’ve never known him to sound so horrified.”

Anna’s heart pounded. Nothing put an army in greater danger than storming a fortress, and she couldn’t imagine the Light Division anywhere but the thick of the action. The casualty lists would tell her nothing, since they named only officers, merely listing the numbers of casualties from the ranks. But Alec’s letter…Helen had thought to mention seeing Will after Ciudad Rodrigo. Perhaps Alec had done the same.

She couldn’t bring herself to ask straight out if he had said anything about Sergeant Atkins. “I’d like to read that letter.” Her voice shook, and Arthur, sensing her mood, pulled away from her breast and whimpered.

“If you’re certain,” Lucy said. “You still haven’t regained your full strength.”

Anna cradled Arthur against her, smoothing his hair. “I need to know.”

“Then I will bring it to you or send James. But it may not have all the answers you seek. You know Alec’s letters.”

Anna did. They were spare, direct and masculine, not rambling and gossipy like Helen’s.

“I want to see it,” she repeated. “At least I’ll
know
what I don’t know.”

And so about half an hour later, James came in bearing a bundle of papers.

“Lucy said you wished to see Alec’s latest,” he said. “I thought you might want the dispatches and casualty lists as well.”

She sat up in bed and extended an eager hand.

“Are you ready for this?” he asked. “You look so pale.”

“I’m ready. Now that I know there was a dreadful battle, the less I know, the worse my speculations will be.”

He handed the papers over. “I understand. Shall I stay while you read them?”

She shook her head. “Thank you, but I’d rather be alone.”

“If you’re sure.”

“I am. You may hover just outside the door if you must.”

He looked faintly guilty. “I only want to be sure someone is near, in case—”

“I’ve never been given to fainting, James.”

“I know. But you almost died.”

She sighed. “It’s been over a month now. Wait outside the door. I shall endeavor to collapse noisily, should it come to that.”

With a reluctant laugh, he left her alone.

She unfolded Alec’s letter, dated five days after the battle, and hurriedly skimmed the opening preliminaries.

The letter listed several names. Anna blinked back tears over them, but he said nothing of Will.

Anna frowned.
Good friends, very dear friends.
Did Alec mean the officers he had named or was that a veiled reference to Will? She wouldn’t have thought Alec so subtle, but Helen could be, and Anna had suspected all along that she had some inkling of Arthur’s true paternity.

She cast the letter aside and turned her attention to the casualty lists and dispatches, even though she knew they would not hold the answers she sought. Tears flowed down her cheeks.

This wouldn’t do. With sudden determination, she hauled herself out of bed, knotted her wrapper about her waist and made her way across the room to her writing table.

James burst in as she reached her chair. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“That cannot have sounded like a faint,” she accused. “I must write Helen. Alec’s letter was singularly uninformative.”

He studied her in dismay, then drew out the chair and helped her sit, got out paper, pen, and ink, and arrayed them before her. Leaning against the wall, he waited expectantly.

“James. Can
you
write a letter with someone hovering over you?”

“It depends on the letter.” He frowned. “Are you certain you won’t faint?”

“You may come every quarter hour to make sure I am conscious, but please allow me to write in peace.”

“Very well. I’m sorry, Anna. I—I’m still worried about you.”

“You’re the dearest of brothers. But I’m much better.”

With an awkward nod, he left her alone again.

Anna wrote quickly, worrying her lower lip with her teeth as she sought the right words. She opened with assurances of her safety, added effusions over Arthur, inquired after Charlie and Nell, and expressed sorrow over Badajoz and the friends Alec had named.
Do you know if Sergeant Atkins survived the battle?
she wrote at last.
I can never forget his gallantry on my behalf, and when I see the scale of the Light Division’s losses, I cannot help feeling grave concern over his fate.
If that increased Helen’s suspicions, so be it. Now she must endure the weeks of uncertainty until she could expect a reply.

***

Will continued lucky according to the new standards he was forced to accept. His stump healed cleanly, and he gained strength by the day. He was among the first of the severely wounded to be let out of hospital, and scarcely a month after Badajoz he would leave the army on a convoy bound for Lisbon. Juana and Anita would travel with him. Once they reached England, Will felt confident he could persuade his family to give her suitable work.

When Will compared his lot to that of the other soldiers he would travel home with, he realized he
was
lucky. He had a family to return to, and not one that depended upon his support, but one that could take him in. Since he’d had some education, he was still fit for work. A man who could read well, write a fair hand and work figures need not have two hands to get his living.

But as his departure day drew near, he grew melancholy. It wasn’t only the loss of the arm. He’d grown to take for granted the gypsy life of the army, the constant roving, never knowing what he might find over the next hill or where the army might send him next.

He loved his family and looked forward to seeing his boyhood haunts again. But when he thought of spending the rest of his life there, hemmed in by village life and village gossip, the green hills of Shropshire started to feel like a trap. He hadn’t wholly outgrown the restlessness that had driven him to enlist at sixteen.

The evening before the convoy left, Captain Matheson invited Will to his tent, where he poured him a glass of wine and sat reminiscing over the campaign.

“I’ll miss you, Atkins,” he said in the end.

“Thank you, sir.”

“You and Reynolds both. An officer couldn’t ask for better sergeants.”

“That’s high praise.”

“Fully deserved, I assure you. Not that Elliott and Carter don’t deserve the step, but I’ll miss you.”

Will sipped his wine. “It’s been an honor serving with you, sir. I’ll miss the regiment.” He stared through the open tent flap at the bustle of the camp. “I’ll miss this life.”

“Will you?” Captain Matheson studied him thoughtfully as he refilled their glasses.

“I will. I’ve seen so much of the world—” he hesitated, not wanting to complain, “—and now, I’ll see my home again.”

“With too much of the world left unseen,” the captain said shrewdly.

“Yes,” he said, surprised into honesty. “But I’m a lucky man, truly. I’ve a good home to go back to. And there’s nothing for it but to try to build a life there.”

“A wise philosophy—unless you had another choice before you.”

Will frowned. “But I don’t, sir.”

“Nonsense. There are always choices. You may recall that I have several brothers. We younger sons are scattered about—Robert in the church, I here—and Neil works for the East India Company, in their offices in London. Have you ever thought of going to India?”

He shook his head. “Only if the regiment had been sent there someday.”

“You might consider it now. The Company is always looking for able men. I’d be happy to write a letter to my brother. You’d have to start as a clerk, but if you wanted to rise, you could.”

Will hardly knew what to think. He didn’t wish to spend all his life in Market Stretton, the tiny village in a green Shropshire valley where he’d been born and raised, but he wasn’t ready to commit to spending it half the world away on a moment’s notice. “That’s generous of you, sir. I don’t know what to say.”

“You needn’t decide on the spot. I’ll write the letter tonight, and if you decide to try, you can go to London and take it to him.”

“I can’t thank you enough, sir.”

“Consider it my thanks to you, for all your service to the regiment.”

Captain Matheson stood, and Will followed his lead. They shook hands. “Good luck to you, Sergeant.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“And think on India.”

“I will.”

And with that, Will’s life in the army ended.

July 1812

“You must wear that one home, Anna. You look like summer incarnate.”

“Her ladyship is right, ma’am, if I may say so.”

Privately Anna thought the dress too girlish, but it would’ve been unkind to say so before Lucy and Mrs. Dyer, a dressmaker who would’ve shone in far more cosmopolitan circles had she not loved her native village so much.

A fortnight earlier, Lucy had pointed out that Anna’s mourning for Sebastian was over and proposed new dresses. Anna had been reluctant—she’d heard nothing from Helen, and she had no desire for cheerful new frocks while she lived in suspense over Will’s fate. But Lucy had been stubborn. Anna had submitted to her wishes but had allowed Lucy and Mrs. Dyer to select most of the patterns and materials.

Now she regretted it, but she made herself speak kindly. “I
have
always liked green. You’ve done beautiful work as always, Mrs. Dyer, and you keep us in the first stare of fashion even here in the country.”

“Thank you, ma’am—so very kind! Here, let me adjust this.”

The dressmaker leaned in to make a minute alteration to the ribbon trimming Anna’s sleeve. It
was
a lovely dress, airy white muslin woven all over with green vines and trimmed with matching ribbons. Four years ago Anna would have adored it. So she smiled and said all the right things as the dressmaker packed her other dresses and had her servant carry them to the Orchard Park carriage.

“It’s a lovely day,” Lucy said as they emerged from the shop into the bright July sunshine. “Shall we stroll about the village before we go home?”

Anna acquiesced. The day’s beauty was a partial balm to her restless soul.

Arm in arm they walked the length of the high street, bowing to the vicar’s wife, laughing as they jumped back to avoid a pair of boys chasing a dog, and commenting upon the merchandise in the shop windows.

Anna inhaled deeply as they passed a bakeshop. “Those meat pies smell heavenly.”

“Then we must buy some.”

Anna blinked at Lucy. Ladies who had expensive French chefs at home did not generally patronize village bakeries.

“You’re still too thin, Anna. If it’s meat pies you want, meat pies you shall have.”

They stepped into the shop, purchased two piping-hot beef pies wrapped neatly in paper, and carried them out.

“They should be cool by the time we get to the carriage,” Lucy said.

Anna smiled wistfully as they began to retrace their steps. James and Lucy were trying their best to restore her to happiness. It wasn’t their fault she had grown difficult to please.

“Help a soldier’s widow! My boy is hungry, starving!”

The shouted plea broke through Anna’s reverie. She spotted the speaker seated on the ground outside a butcher’s shop across the street—a thin, sunburned woman in a ragged dress, with a hollow-eyed blond boy, perhaps four years old, leaning against her side.

With a quick glance to make sure the way was clear, Anna crossed the street, not even looking to see if Lucy followed. Heedless of the dusty path, she crouched beside the beggar woman and held out her pie. “Here—for your son.”

Lucy appeared at her shoulder and wordlessly offered hers as well, though she remained on her feet.

“Thank you, ma’am. Oh,
thank
you!” The woman’s hands shook as she unwrapped the first pie and handed it to the boy, who took a ravenous bite. “Robin, your manners. Thank the ladies.”

The little boy stared at them and kept eating.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. He knows better, but…”

“He’s hungry,” Anna finished. “Think nothing of it. We army women have to look out for each other.”

The woman looked more closely at Anna, a faint sparkle of interest in her weary gray eyes. “You’re an officer’s wife, ma’am?”

She nodded. “I’m a widow now, too, but I followed the drum for two years.”

“Oh, you were lucky, ma’am, if you’ll pardon my saying so. I would’ve given anything to have followed my Robert.”

“What was his regiment?”

“The Forty-Third, ma’am.”

Anna shifted to a more comfortable crouch. “The Forty-Third! Your husband must have been a brave man.”

“You know them?”

“Of course! They’re Light Division, and there are no finer soldiers in the army.” Alec and Helen might have debated the point, but Will would have agreed wholeheartedly, and somewhere along the way Anna had adopted his views.

“Yes, ma’am, but now he’s gone, and I don’t know what to do.”

“Have you any family, or perhaps kin of your husband’s, who might take you in? If they’re far away, I’d be happy to help you get there.”

“No, ma’am.” She shook her head. “There’s no one left. We had rooms in Gloucester, and I took in sewing when I could, but last month I had no money for the rent, and we’ve been walking since, looking for work. I know we should go to the workhouse, but I hate the thought.”

“Naturally you do.” Anna thought fast. “You took in sewing. Have you done any other work?”

“Yes, ma’am. Before I married, I was a housemaid in Squire Dalloway’s household.”

Anna had wealth beyond this woman’s imaginings, but the one thing she was
not
was mistress of her own establishment. She cast a pleading look over her shoulder at Lucy. “The nursery,” she murmured. “You said we need another maid.”

Lucy looked torn between compassion and doubt, but at last she yielded with a tight nod. “What is your name?” she asked.

“Tamsin Lewis, ma’am.”

“Very well, Mrs. Lewis. Wait here, and we’ll send the gig before nightfall. You will be our third nursery-maid, on a fortnight’s trial, and if you suit, we will pay you eight guineas per year, along with room and board for you and your son.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

Mrs. Lewis began to weep, and Anna produced a handkerchief from her reticule. “She is Lady Selsley of Orchard Park,” she said. “I am her sister-in-law, Mrs. Arrington. Between us we have three babies in the nursery, so you mustn’t think of this as charity.”

“You’re too kind, ma’am, my lady. I’m a good worker, you’ll see, and once Robin is stronger he’ll work, too, in the stables or the gardens or wherever you need.”

“Perhaps in a few years,” Lucy said. “He’s too young. In any case, wait here. We will send for you.”

Anna handed her a few coins. “Here. In case the boy gets hungry again in the meantime.”

At that they left her. “Anna, your beautiful dress!” Lucy said. “You’re covered in dust.”

She brushed at her skirts to little avail, then shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.”

Lucy blinked at her. When they were out of Mrs. Lewis’s earshot, she spoke again. “How do you know she won’t spend the money you gave her on drink?”

“I didn’t think she looked the sort, did you?”

Lucy shook her head.

“And if I’m wrong,” she said practically, “she won’t be waiting when we send the gig, and we’ll know she wasn’t suitable for the nursery.”

They reached the carriage, and the coachman sprang down to hand them inside. As they began to roll toward Orchard Park, Anna smiled ruefully at her sister-in-law. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I realize I placed you in an awkward position, but I couldn’t leave her there.”

“No, but you could have alerted the parish authorities.”

“She doesn’t want to go to the workhouse.”

Lucy gazed out the window, her face carefully blank. “I understand. I do. But as nursery maid—and she’ll be bringing that boy with her! I have to think of the girls.”

A great anger and impatience welled up within Anna. “If you’re afraid that your daughters will be polluted by the society of the son of a common soldier,” she snapped, “then I must tell you that the damage is already done.”

She expected an exclamation of shock and outrage and was almost disappointed when Lucy merely turned to face her again. “Anna, don’t be absurd. Whatever Arthur’s father may be, your son will not bring contagion into the nursery, or—” she shuddered and touched a hand to the thick brown hair that peeped from beneath her bonnet, “—
lice.
”

Of course. Lucy was so perfectly the lady that Anna had almost forgotten that her first nine years had passed in London poverty bordering upon squalor. Now she had an obsession with cleanliness and horror of disease, her way of reassuring herself that Lady Selsley would never again be sickly, dirty Lucy Jones of London.

“Certainly they must have baths first,” she said gently, “and be provided with fine-toothed combs.”

Lucy stared at her hands. “I suppose. I—I simply cannot bear the thought of the girls having
lice
.”

“They won’t,” Anna assured her.

“And, Anna—” Lucy looked up, again the poised, confident young viscountess. “I know you felt obliged to help that woman, but—”

“You’d rather I didn’t go about hiring strange people I meet on the high street to be your servants.”

“Exactly. One likes to have a character for a new servant. And we cannot rescue every waif. Orchard Park can only employ so many, and even your brother’s fortune isn’t infinite.”

Anna sighed. “If men are willing to die for England, England ought to care for their widows and orphans. It isn’t right for a soldier’s son to go hungry.”

“It isn’t right for
any
child to go hungry,” Lucy said stoutly.

“No, of course not,” Anna agreed, reaching out to squeeze Lucy’s hand. “But it makes me angrier when it’s a soldier’s child. They’re
my
people.”

“They are, aren’t they? You—you almost seemed more yourself talking to that woman in the dirt than you do at Orchard Park with us.”

Anna stared out at the gentle, green countryside. “I didn’t think of it before Arthur came. All that mattered was getting to someplace safe and seeing him safely born. And afterward I was so ill. But now that I feel myself again, I cannot go back.”

“Cannot go back to what?”

“To the life I led before I married. Everyone expects it of me, I know.”

“Not exactly. You’re older and a mother now. And of course a widow has more freedom than a young girl.”

Anna shook her head impatiently. “That isn’t what I mean. All of you—you, James, Aunt Lilias in her letters. She’s already matchmaking. You want me to step back into my old place as if nothing had happened.” As if she’d never endured two years with a husband who thought her little better than a whore. As if she’d never marched with the army, faced danger, killed men to save her life and that of the man she loved. As if she had never met Will.

“She only wants you to be happy. That’s what we all want.”

“I know. I couldn’t be more fortunate in my family, and I love you all. But I cannot be the—the
butterfly
I was before. I’ve seen too much. I’ve done too much.”

“Then what do you want?”

She wanted Will, but she could not have him and would not even allow herself to believe he lived, not after Badajoz.

“Something to fight for,” she said. That was the heart of her restlessness. She’d learned to be a fighter, and she needed a battle.

Lucy considered her, her brown eyes grave. “With your fortune, you have the power to do any amount of good. You could set up a school for soldiers’ orphans, and perhaps to train and place their mothers in suitable situations.”

Anna pictured such an institution finding work for hundreds of Mrs. Lewises and giving their children a good basic education and some kind of trade to follow. “That’s a wonderful idea! I believe I’ll discuss it with James.” Her brother was quietly involved in a number of good works, though he was never as flashy about his philanthropy as he was about his clothing, his horses, or his oratorical flourishes in the House of Lords. “But, Lucy, it’s something I could do with my
money
, not my
life
. I’m hardly suited to teaching widows and orphans myself—I’d be nothing but a meddling aristocratic dabbler.” She shook her head. “I wish I could follow the drum again.”

“You do? I thought you were unhappy there.”

“I was unhappy in my marriage. The life suited me.”

“But from all you’ve said, it sounds like such a rough, difficult manner of living.”

Anna fussed with her dusty skirts as she sought words to explain. “It’s not that I enjoy being dirty or hot or hungry, but I miss the variety and adventure of it. I suppose I’m a wanderer at heart.”

“But you love Dunmalcolm so much.”

“I do. And when Sebastian died, I wanted to go straight there and never leave. But now…it’s still my home, but I’d rather have it as the place I can always return to than as the place I’ll always stay.”

Lucy shrugged. “Well, if following the drum again is what you want, it’s easy enough to achieve. Simply marry another officer.”

But it wouldn’t be right. “If I cannot marry Arthur’s father, then I will not marry at all.”

“Then I have no answers for you.”

As Orchard Park came into sight, Anna saw four coaches in front of the main entrance, with footmen bustling to unload baggage from the last two.

“Uncle Robert and Aunt Lilias,” she said, feeling a curious mixture of joy and dismay. But her misgivings evaporated when she stepped down from the carriage into her aunt’s waiting arms.

“Anna, my dearest child.”

Anna blinked back tears. Aunt Lilias was the closest thing to a mother she had ever had. All through the worst days of her marriage, and again on her journey back to England, pregnant and alone, Anna had longed for her aunt’s affection and comfort. “Dear Aunt Lilias.”

Her aunt broke the embrace and spoke with a briskness at odds with her tear-bright eyes. “We mustn’t stand weeping on your brother’s doorstep. Come, greet your uncle, then take me straight to the nursery to meet your dear little Arthur.”

Alert to her aunt’s comforts, Anna persuaded her to take tea and change her traveling dress first. But soon they were together in the nursery, Aunt Lilias with the baby on her lap, Anna hovering over her shoulder. Arthur was at his most charming, delighting them with cooing and a gummy grin in response to the smallest efforts to amuse him.

“What a beautiful boy he is, Anna, and he has the Gordon smile.”

“And the Gordon hair.”

“Indeed. There’s nothing of our family about his eyes, though. Is that color an Arrington trait? I thought Sebastian’s were blue.”