Chapter 9 #2
“I was in Brussels, before. With the other Greys officers’ wives, from among those who had come to Ostend .
. . We made our way to Brussels from Ghent the first week of June to be nearer to our husbands’ billets.
No one knew at that point how long it might be before there was any sort of serious action, only that one was coming.
We were in Brussels already when the call came for the troops to muster in the streets.
The Greys, Jamie included, were not among them.
Well, excepting a few senior field officers attending the Duchess of Richmond’s ball.
But our men—the company officers—bivouacked elsewhere with the rest of the cavalry.
We did not see them off in the early morning. ” She fell silent.
Nathaniel tightened his hand’s clasp where it rested now on her shoulder but did nothing else, said nothing.
He was a man of great patience, one of many attributes she was learning about him.
No doubt life had required it of him, with where it had taken him.
And that patience was a gift to her in this moment.
When she felt able, she continued her story.
“Later that day we could hear the cannonade from Quatre Bras that bespoke heavy engagement. Bruxellois citizens and the British alike, both attached to the armies and civilians . . . The whole city was anxious. Rumors abounded. All we could do was wait, knowing for certain only that the ceaseless guns signified a great battle. For us . . . the Greys’ wives .
. . We did not hear at first that the cavalry did not make it in time for that day’s action.
We had assumed them engaged as well, with Wellington.
In the confusion after, we did not find out until the following day . . .”
She swallowed hard. “Among the many rumors was that the French army had prevailed, was marching on Brussels. Next, that they had already breached the gate and entered the city. British civilians, the women and children in particular, were urged forcefully to relocate to Antwerp with as much haste as possible. Other wives of the Greys went, if they could arrange transport. I . . . did not. I cannot say why, precisely. I suppose I was little afeared on my own account. I had, as you’ve seen, the pistol given me. ” A ghost of a smile curled her mouth.
Nathaniel’s thumb was moving on her shoulder now. Again, a reminder she was here, not there.
“I cleaned and loaded it. And I waited.” She took a deep breath.
“The wounded began to come in from Quatre Bras, and I learned the Greys arrived too late to be part of it. In time for the next engagement, but—” She stopped and shook her head.
“I had to find something to occupy myself, waiting all that next day. I helped with the injured as I could. I was so fiercely relieved. Some of the Highlander officers were known to me, were gravely injured. And I was so bloody relieved that Jamie wasn’t there.
Nor any of the other men in the Greys. There was battle yet to come, and soon, and of course I ultimately was wrong to feel so relieved . . . but I did.”
It was becoming more difficult to continue.
“There was a tremendous storm all that night and into the morning. And I hoped— But then came the sounds of battle again. The artillery and the guns, late in the morning. All that day, for hours, thunder without pause. We could smell the powder in the air. Several leagues removed from the battlefield, and we smelled it. I could not sit idle, waiting for word, or pace the park as some did to engage in frantic speculation. I continued assisting the wounded. It gave my hands something to do. My mind as well. Men were still staggering in from Quatre Bras, but that afternoon . . . came men from Waterloo. Men were lying openly in the streets by then. Not enough room in hospitals or private houses. I brought water, found bandages, eased pain where I could. Eased the dying.” She gulped.
“I held one young Highlander’s hand. He’d taken a musket ball to the chest and another to his midsection .
. .” It was hard to draw air properly. “I sang him one of my nan’s cradle songs.
And I . . . closed his eyes, after.” He’d had blue eyes.
She took a deep, faltering breath. “It went much the same the next morning. Except I’d heard by then Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton of the Greys had been killed, along with many of the men—but still no list of names.”
Another breath. “So many wounded. English, Scottish, Belgic, Hungarian, Prussian. French officers taken prisoner. No end to the wounded arriving. For a week, did you know? And some directed straight to Antwerp if they were mobile. That is where I went later, to help with those in hospital. After.”
She wanted now to stop, but it was a wound in need of lancing.
“An officer found me the day after the battle to—to tell me what he knew. But the details of what became of Jamie, those I heard only because one of Jamie’s subalterns received a devastating wound to his leg. I was brought to him. He was . . . I . . .” She couldn’t continue after all.
Nathaniel turned his cheek against the crown of her head. Bearing witness.
Had anyone borne witness to the events he’d seen? Lived through?
“He did not survive, in the end. The cornet. The wound festered and claimed him less than a week later. If he’d been brought in sooner, perhaps, wasn’t made to lie in the mud and gore of the battlefield for nearly two days .
. . but perhaps it would have been mortal in any case. So many of the Greys, cut down.”
She sucked in a breath, quick and painful.
“Jamie died where he fell, or near enough to it. Near the beginning of the charge. I never saw him, after. Would it have prevented some of the nightmares, had I? Or worsened them? It wasn’t my choice, not seeing him.
When the cavalry has retreated over the same ground from— They could not recover Jamie before the retreat.
They did later find . . .” She shut her eyes briefly.
“There is a stone for him in a kirkyard in Brussels, but that was all I had to grieve over, that stone.”
Although perhaps it was best that her last memory of Jamie was of him hale and whole, the grin on his face just before he kissed her that first won her over as a girl in Edinburgh.
“I remained with Cornet Forbes. He was out of his head with pain and fever. Most of Jamie’s fellow officers were kindness themselves. Solicitous of my feelings when they spoke to me but scrupulous about what they deemed proper to relay.” She laughed softly, but it was devoid of amusement.
“I was grateful, truly, to learn what I did from Cornet Forbes. Although . . . These nightmares . . . I suppose some irrational corner of my mind must believe now that I could have saved him. Jamie. Maybe Cornet Forbes or the young Highlander. Any of the men whose hands I held, whose wounds I tended and brows I wiped, who did not leave Brussels and Antwerp alive.”
She swallowed away the grief that strangled her voice.
A tear slid warm down her cheek and across the bridge of her nose as she mastered her emotions, until her voice was her own once more.
“So if I am driven now to find Lucy . . . Irrational a hope as it may be, however improbable, I might yet save her.” She twisted under the blanket onto her back.
Nathaniel moved up onto one elbow beside her.
“There may yet be a better outcome than what my brain conjures up at night,” she said softly.
“I am afeared of it still, what has become of Lucy. Awake and sleeping. I know I place myself in danger in looking for her, but I have no one else. I must try, for her sake and my own, no matter the outcome.” She looked upwards into Nathaniel’s face.
There was light enough now to clearly delineate his features. His words, when he finally spoke, took her by surprise. “You could teach many of courage.” His free hand came along her jaw, lightly, his thumb brushing her cheekbone where another tear tracked.
The touch was not carnal, nor intended as such. But their faces were scant inches apart. His hand on her face stilled. His eyes . . . She could read them now, and her breath caught.
Vulnerability transmuted into something differently intimate. Awareness sizzled between them.
For a moment, with every fiber of her being, she wanted. Wanted to reach out, to seek a new kind of comfort from him, to take what was in his eyes and return it.
He pushed himself off the bed, and she released her breath. Long after he quit the rooms to check downstairs for notes, she still felt his hand against her cheek.
She had an answer now for what he might have done, had she rolled over to face him as he woke.
After disembarking near the Porte Saint-Denis, Nate chose a circuitous route through several ruelles.
He walked a half step behind Isobel, scanning as usual for any undue interest from others on the street, until they arrived at L'Orchidée’s back entrance.
He told himself sternly that it was just as well he needed to remain alert given it inhibited conversation.
Isobel also seemed to feel no need to converse as she stepped carefully on the rutted pavement.
She was once more wearing her own sturdy boots; they peeked out from beneath the hem of the plain cloak supplied for when she was not arrayed as Beaumont’s companion.
He himself wore inconspicuous clothing again, none of Beaumont’s flashier finery, hat pulled low over his brow and scarf muffling part of his face.
Amélie rose at once when they entered her private sitting room, taking Isobel’s hands. “Come, ma chère, there is coffee here, hot, or chocolat chaud may be brought up if you prefer? I myself started with the chocolate and am now having coffee.”
“Coffee would be most welcome, but please do not trouble yourself to pour for me.”
“Quel balivernes!” Amélie said. “I am your hostess still, whatever are these unusual circumstances. Milk again, without sugar?”