Chapter 21
“Victory!” came the wallops from around camp that night after they’d seen to the wounded and buried the dead. “God save the Queen!”
Mary was no queen, but she had at least saved herself during the ambush.
She’d also protected the undefended in the camp: a group of fifty women traveling at the rear of the line—the camp cooking staff as well as an officer’s wife, Mrs. Lambert, who’d been in the throes of labor for two days.
Mary happened to be in the right place when the skirmish struck.
She’d longed to be near them—but not too near.
To listen to their voices, their gossip, and their troubles.
What sorts of things did women talk about?
It startled her, at times, this distance. She was no man, but she’d never had the chance to learn how to be a woman.
What was she?
The same women now passed out food, pressing Mary’s hands with thanks.
“Bless you, soldier,” they said. One didn’t let go of her grip.
“They’ve taken Mrs. Lambert to the village for a caesarean,” she whispered.
“If, by some miracle, the lady survives and bears a living son, she vows he’ll be named after you. ”
Mary couldn’t speak. She took the bread without meeting the woman’s eyes.
Henry smiled as he took an extra portion without fuss. “You might use this to your advantage, Read,” he said, one brow arching as he surveyed the female staff.
Mary rolled her eyes and carried her meal to a copse of ash trees so she could eat alone.
Henry followed her. “I only meant you could have asked for another ration!” he corrected. “A hero’s bounty.”
Mary sat on the hard ground and tore into the crusty bread. Her clothes still reeked from the fight. She hadn’t felt safe in her skin since the ambush.
Her friend settled in beside her. “The whole camp is singing your praises.”
As if she hadn’t noticed. “It was a group effort—I won’t say it again,” Mary growled.
She curled her toes in her boots. This skirmish was nothing.
In a few days, maybe a few weeks, they would join with more troops—countless more.
They would fight wars that the red poppies in the field would remember for centuries.
There was nothing here worth remembering. She begged for it to be true.
“Congratulations, Read,” came a voice from above.
Mary’s gut clenched in recognition. Van Acker stood before her, his blond hair disheveled and his gray tunic stained with sweat and blood.
It seemed he also hadn’t bothered to wash or change.
“I’ve never seen such levelheaded thinking in a pinch.
The way you baffled the enemy, driving the line together again.
Is it true you employed a naval battle strategy? ”
“I did what any man would do,” Mary said, though Captain Southwick’s drills for operating under confusion and disorder had risen like instinct.
“Leadership like that will be rewarded.”
She choked.
Henry whooped and elbowed her in the ribs.
“Can I sit with you?” he said with more casualness than she’d seen him exhibit before. Henry assented, and Mary stared ahead. She could feel the heat of Van Acker’s body, and it made her skull buzz as if invaded by a swarm of flies.
Van Acker stretched out his muscular legs, then picked at the scrap of bread in his dirt-caked hands. Why did he choose to eat the standard fare rather than the superior meals reserved for officers?
Never mind. It didn’t matter. She couldn’t waste a single thought on him. It took her entire, constantly thinking mind to survive a single day of her secret life.
“Sergeant Gorst took a hit,” Van Acker said with regret as he chewed.
Henry cursed. “Will he live?”
“An arm wound. The lucky bastard will pull through. But in the meantime, your regiment needs a new officer.”
Mary froze. She had wanted to rise in the ranks. She’d wanted this, needed this, to secure a life for her and Ma. But not so near Van Acker, where she was bound to make mistakes. Her stomach churned.
“It’s already been decided, Read. There is no one worthier; you proved that yourself.” His bright eyes lingered on her. “Am I right, Danby?”
Henry slapped Mary on the back. “You couldn’t find anyone worthier.” He continued with a list of her better qualities until Mary shot him a please-stop-talking glare. He raised his hands in surrender.
“Does Read snore?” Van Acker said.
Mary whirled. “What does that matter?” She could hear the sharp edge in her voice that betrayed her growing panic.
“Silent as a stone,” Henry answered without missing a beat.
“Well, that will be an improvement. Gorst kept me up half the night with his nasal troubles.” He laughed, a melodic sound she hadn’t heard before—one that stabbed Mary between the ribs. “Eat up, Read,” Van Acker said. “Then I’ll show you to our tent.”
Mary held her breath and shuffled her feet through the officer’s camp. Bonfires had already been lit as dusk descended. Van Acker waved at a few men in the process of changing their war-soaked garments as they prepared for bed. Mary had seen enough naked men in her lifetime to know to look away.
This, she rationalized, would be no different. No different from the thousands of other times. But her heart dropped into a deep pit of her stomach when Van Acker opened the flap of a two-person tent.
“Yours is the left cot,” Van Acker said. “Do you need help moving your effects?”
Mary swallowed and shouldered her single bag. “I have everything I need.”
“That’s all you brought?”
“It’s all I have.”
Van Acker studied her, then nodded. He entered the tent and Mary reluctantly followed. He tugged off his muddy boots, then tore off his shirt. Mary pursed her lips. The seared image of his bare skin, the ripples of his muscled back, sent a current through her. She ignored it, ignored everything.
“Nothing like a battle to beat down the body,” Van Acker said.
“Mmm.” Mary slowly unpacked her small bag. It was dim but not dark enough to change her clothes. She pulled a fresh pair of breeches and a clean shirt from the pack—her father’s old shirt. It fit her perfectly now, at twenty-one years old.
Hugging the clothes behind her back, Mary left the tent. She found a clump of oak trees and changed, away from prying eyes.
When she returned, Van Acker sat in bed with a book in hand. He’d pulled his blond hair out from the tie and it hung loose just below his collarbone.
Mary swallowed and bolted for her cot. She got under the blanket and pressed her eyes shut. Though she usually removed the cloth binding her breasts once under the protection of the covers, she would not tonight. Or maybe any other night going forward.
Rolling onto her back, she felt her heart thunder. How would she sleep? She missed Henry already, his chipper nature, his comfortable presence, and his protection. As long as Henry quipped and made a fool of himself, people looked at him. Not at her.
“How are you feeling after today?” Van Acker asked, turning a page of his novel.
Mary winced. He wanted to talk about feelings? “Fine.”
Van Acker huffed. “Fine? Just your usual ambush and combat after lunch?”
“Yes. Fine,” Mary said, turning onto her side to face the tent wall. “Thank you,” she added for good measure.
Van Acker laughed—that horribly beautiful sound from earlier. “Have I done something to offend you, Read?”
Mary gritted her teeth. “No.” Never mind the part where you exist. That I can’t seem to think clearly whenever you are near, when caution and thinking are keeping me here and alive.
That we now have to share the same sleeping quarters.
Mary dared a glance at him. He still held his book, but his ice-blue eyes didn’t leave her.
She’d have to try a different approach since the former was having the opposite effect.
“What are you reading?” she asked. “Is it not a strange thing to bring to a war?”
“Why would it be strange?”
Was there no easy way out of conversation with this insufferable man? The easiest way to draw attention away from herself, she’d learned, was to ask questions of the listener. Men always seemed more inclined to wax on about themselves.
She was not used to questions being lobbed at her.
“It is of little use for victory.” Though as she said it, Mary felt bitter envy.
“Do you only live for victory?”
“Do you only live for long-winded conversation?” Mary said, horrified the moment it came out.
Again, Van Acker laughed. “I knew you disliked me. Why?”
“I don’t dislike you,” Mary said, wishing the covers could make her disappear. “I’m tired.”
“I understand,” Van Acker said, flipping another page and squinting in the candlelight. “Forgive me. I’m an overcurious person—at least my father always said so. I suppose that’s why I seek company in books.”
At this, Mary softened. Perhaps she had been too hard on him. She resorted to her usual tactic. More questions. Better he talk than her.
“Do you get along with your father?”
Van Acker flicked a glance at her. “It’s complicated. But my mother was wonderful.”
Was. She noted the past tense and the bite of pain that accompanied it.
“To answer honestly, I love him well, and I know he cares for me. But sometimes I wonder who he might have been had he not been born ‘Lord Van Acker.’ If he wasn’t a baron, perhaps he’d care for me beyond my position.
I might have been a better fit for the clergy than the military.
A scholar of sorts. I love languages.” He paused. “What about your father?”
Mary was aware of the threadbare shirt she wore—her father’s murky legacy, his skills as a navigator.
The same skills she herself had honed and then abandoned.
Just like she’d abandoned so many things and people she’d loved.
“My mother was the person who raised me,” Mary said.
“She wanted me to have a life she couldn’t have for herself. ”
The raw, blazing truth surprised Mary. When was the last time she’d told the truth?