Chapter Fourteen

“This is insubordination.” Stanley glared at Pluck with an intensity that had on more than one occasion pulled confessions from the soldiers under his command.

Pluck did nothing more than tweak an eyebrow. “Ye gonna have me court-martialed, Cap’n?”

“My brother and his family will arrive in a matter of minutes,” Stanley said. “I cannot greet them looking like this.” He raised his bare right hand, motioning to it with his left as the sleeves of both his uniform jacket and shirtsleeves drooped lamely away from his elevated wrist. “You produce my glove and buttons, or I will have your neck.”

“Nah, ye don’t mean that.”

“Chance it. I dare you to.” Stanley pressed the words through his locked jaw.

He had been dreading the dinner party already. Layton, the second-oldest Jonquil brother, could be horrifically insightful.

Layton’s wife had lost a brother to the war, a soldier Stanley had known—another name on the long list of friends and colleagues who hadn’t lived through the battles that still plagued him. Would she ask about her brother? She wouldn’t have to do so directly for the horrors to plague him. Just knowing she would be there had already pushed memories of Lieutenant Linwood into his mind.

The thought of seeing Caroline, Layton’s daughter, plagued him most. Caroline had been born not long after Stanley had first joined the army. She had, in his mind, represented the reason he had fought as hard as he had. Visions of the kind of world she would grow up in if they did not emerge triumphant had haunted him, pressing him on when the weight of it all threatened to crush him.

“I cain’t give ye your gloves nor your buttons ’cause I didn’t finger ’em,” Pluck said. “Now be a good cap’n and march on downstairs.”

“Captains do not take orders from privates.”

“But they do take them from countesses.” A new voice entered the debate.

Stanley snapped his head in the direction of his door. Sorrel stood there, watching him with a look he found even more daunting than the one he’d used on Pluck only moments earlier. She had a way of making him feel like a raw recruit being called to account by an uncompromising general.

“I understand you intend to insult me by refusing to join the dinner party I have organized,” she said.

How did he answer that without either indicating his intention to be uncivil or committing himself to attending?

Sorrel advanced toward him. She moved with the determination and confidence of Wellington and Napoleon combined. The thump of her walking stick and the noticeable limp in her gait did nothing to diminish the air of control she exuded in each and every situation. Stanley’s limp, on the other hand, made him look pathetic.

As Sorrel drew near, Stanley slipped his right hand slightly behind his back. No point starting the staring before completely necessary.

“Layton will be here in a moment,” she said. “I expect you to be in the drawing room to greet him and his family.”

“I am having something of a wardrobe difficulty.” He very nearly added a firm “sir” and a salute. The army could have used someone like his sister-in-law.

Sorrel looked him up and down. “Nothing essential appears to be missing.”

“Half of my gloves have disappeared.” He stood at full attention while speaking to her, not that his soldier’s posture ever completely slipped.

“We will not hold you to the formality of being gloved,” Sorrel said.

“I hold myself to that formality.”

“Do not waste my time with half-truths,” Sorrel said. “You are hiding your injuries, as always. I have seen how you keep yourself apart from everyone, and all on account of your relatively minor limp.”

“Minor?” Was the woman blind?

“The moment your limp is as obvious as mine”—Sorrel practically spat out the words—“I will allow you a more drastic word than minor.”

He had to concede that her limp was more pronounced than his. The limp didn’t bother him most anyway. He could endure the sight of his mangled hand and the memories that inevitably followed; however, he hated knowing that a piece of him had been hacked off and tossed aside. It made a person feel very disposable.

“Now, do you plan to join your family for dinner, or am I to assume that the victorious British Army consisted entirely of cowardly, sniveling infants?”

Pluck’s snicker did not help. “He’ll be there, m’lady.” He bowed to her. “Cap’n Jonquil ain’t never been a coward.”

“Very good.” Sorrel turned swiftly, though not smoothly, and walked toward the door. She stopped a few steps short and turned back. “A word of advice, Stanley—”

He waited as silently as he had when receiving orders from his commanding officers.

“Use the walking stick in your left hand.”

“But it is my right leg that is injured,” he said.

“A common mistake amongst amateurs.” The slightest hint of amusement tugged at her lips. “Your walking stick will be far more effective when used on your uninjured side.”

That didn’t make a great deal of sense.

“Trust me.” Apparently his doubt showed. “Time the use of the cane to match your injured leg but held in the opposite hand. You’ll notice an improvement.”

He acknowledged her advice with a nod of his head. His right hand would hurt less if not forced to constantly grip the head of his walking stick. He could at least try.

“One more thing.” Her expression grew quite somber once more. “Wipe that glare off your face before you head downstairs. I swear to you, if you make my sister cry one more time, I will skin you alive.” She looked like she meant it.

“I would never make her cry, not intentionally.” He felt ill at the very thought of causing Marjie pain.

“Then forgive her,” Sorrel said, “and be kind.”

“Forgive her?”

Sorrel’s eyes sparkled quite suddenly, and Stanley had a feeling she was inwardly laughing at him. “For stealing your gloves and buttons.”

Marjie! The idea that she had stolen those things had never entered his mind.

“Five minutes, Stanley,” Sorrel said. The words were obviously a command. She walked out with all her usual resoluteness.

“Makes a fella feel like salutin’, don’t she?” Pluck said.

“Yes, the countess has that effect on a person.”

A little less than five minutes later, his walking stick in his left hand and his right kept as near his side and inconspicuous as possible, Stanley stepped into the drawing room. He did not see Marjie, but a quick scan of the room proved that nearly everyone else was accounted for. Mater sat on a sofa talking with Marion, Layton’s wife, and Sorrel. Harold had arrived as well, his usual look of pious contemplation firmly in place.

Layton and Philip, who stood beside each other near a far window, looked over at Stanley as he came inside. They made an interesting picture: Philip’s taller, leaner frame bedecked in his usual flamboyant attire contrasted with Layton’s brawny build and subdued choice of clothing. Their grins, however, were identical.

“Stanley!” Layton crossed the room. He’d been so achingly unhappy in the years following the death of his first wife. Marion’s arrival in his life had changed him for the better.

Layton looked Stanley over. “You look horrible.”

Stanley was startled into a chuckle. “Thank you.”

“Be nice to your brother.” Marion rose and walked toward them. Stanley required a moment to acclimate himself to the change in her appearance. She still had unfathomably red hair and an infectious smile, but she was more rounded in the middle than she had been the last time he’d seen her some six months earlier.

Mater had mentioned Layton and Marion were expecting new arrivals toward the beginning of the next year. Corbin and his wife, Clara, were anticipating an addition to their family in the spring. Thus far, Jason and Mariposa, who had been married for only a couple months, had not made any announcement. The country would soon be overrun with Jonquils. Everyone remained entirely silent on the topic of Philip and Sorrel and their future family, however.

“A few extra meals,” Marion said to Stanley, “and a bit of rest and you’ll be quite your old self again.” Marion tended to be unrealistically optimistic.

“Where did Caroline wander off to?” Layton looked around the room.

“She’ll be back in a moment, dear.” Marion smiled up at her husband. “Marjie insisted on straightening the girl’s ribbon.”

“Those two have become thick as thieves,” Layton said.

Thieves. An interesting choice of words considering Marjie’s recent nefarious activities.

Something quite suddenly collided with his legs. Stanley clung to his walking stick and managed to keep his balance. He glanced down and found that Caroline had flung herself against him, wrapping her arms around his left leg.

“Stanby!” she said, her face pressed against him. Caroline was rather famous amongst the Jonquils for her inability to pronounce anyone’s name correctly.

“Sit down, Stanley,” Marion gently instructed, “before she knocks you right off your feet.”

Recognizing the wisdom in her words, Stanley moved with some difficulty—Caroline did not release her hold on his leg—to a nearby armchair. He dropped into it, and Caroline climbed onto his lap. Stanley leaned his walking stick against the side of his chair and wound his left arm behind Caroline to prevent her from tumbling off.

Before Marjie, it had been Caroline’s face he had pictured when trying to push the horrible images of war from his mind. He’d spent many nights lying on his cot, listening to the eerie stillness that always descended on the camp the night before a battle and, in his mind, escaped it all. He would think of home and the tiny child in the miniature Philip had sent him. He would picture her growing up in a world free from the icy grip of war.

“You walk like Aunt Swirl now,” Caroline said.

“Yes, I believe she has been copying me,” Stanley said, managing a light response. Leave it to a child to jump right to the heart of the matter.

“Marching fixed my grown-up ribbon.” Marching was Caroline’s version of Marjie’s name. “See?” Caroline tipped her head so he could see the bow tied quite saucily just above her left ear.

Such unspoiled joy over something as simple as a ribbon. He had pictured her life that way. She would never wear the expressions of fear and exhaustion he had seen on the faces of children her age and younger scattered across the ravaged Peninsula. All the death and loss had given her that.

“Marching said I look elegant.” Caroline lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “It is my very most favorite ribbon.”

“Is it?”

“Touch it, Stanby.” She smiled up at him. “It is sooo”—she dragged out the so to a very dramatic length—“soft.”

He reached up and ran the tip of his finger along the smooth edge of the satin ribbon in her golden curls. Marjie’s children would someday look precisely like Caroline, and they would be every bit as angelic. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her there, watching him. A smile lit her face, and warmth spread through Stanley at the sight of it. He would buy every one of her daughters yards and yards of ribbon if only to bring just such a look to her face. Except . . . her husband would most certainly object.

“Oh, Stanby.” Caroline wrapped her hands around his outstretched arm. “You have a hurt.”

Too late, he realized he’d touched her ribbon with his right hand, his left being occupied with holding her on his lap. Stanley’s eyes darted around the room. For a fraction of a moment, they were all staring at the mutilated remains of his hand that had, before Marjie’s interference, remained tucked out of sight. Then, in perfect unison, every pair of eyes looked away and conversations began with an abnormal abruptness that spoke volumes of everyone’s mutual discomfort. Even Marjie diverted her eyes.

“Stanby?” Caroline hadn’t released his wrist yet, though her touch was light enough that it didn’t really hurt.

“Yes, Poppet?”

“I have a hurt too,” she whispered, and her enormous blue eyes instantly turned shimmery with unshed tears. Caroline laid his hand ever so gently across her legs, as if it were made of the most fragile porcelain. She raised her left hand, only her pinkie extended. Tied around the end of her tiny finger was a scrap of fabric. “I cut it on a rock by the river because I fell in. Papa said I was very, very brave, even though I was scared. Were you scared when you got your hurt, Stanby?” Caroline’s eyes had dropped to his hand once more. She ran her hand softly down his jacket sleeve, as if soothing the pain she sensed there. “I think you would have to be very brave with such a big hurt.”

A big hurt. Was that the term one used when a man traded his soul for a little girl’s future?

Caroline continued to stroke his arm. “Do you get to stay here now? Now that Badpoleon is gone?”

He wanted to. He wanted to stay and never go back. “No, Poppet. I have to return to the other soldiers.”

Caroline sat up a little, just enough to look into his face. Her eyes had grown wide, her mouth set in a quivering pout. “But I don’t want you to go,” she said. “I want you to stay here with me. We can ride your big gray horse like we did before.”

The big gray horse was dead, blown out from under him at Waterloo.

“When it is time for me to go back, I will have to do so,” Stanley said, his throat narrowing at hearing the thought spoken out loud. He’d been away from it all for less than a month, and already the thought of returning felt like walking into a prison cell after the briefest glimpse of freedom.

“If you go back, who will kiss your hurt and make it better?” Caroline asked.

Nothing would make it better. A man who had been through all he had could never be whole again.

“Mama kissed my hurt.” Caroline had begun calling Marion “Mama” in recent weeks, according to Mater’s very detailed account of the family’s recent history. “It didn’t make it stop hurting, but it made me feel better.”

“I am glad your hurt is better,” Stanley whispered. He breathed through a sudden surge of emotion. He had made very certain that her hurt would never amount to his.

“Mama loved it all better,” Caroline said. “If you stay, Stanby, your hurt will get better too.” His vision blurred with the sting of tears he refused to shed. He wanted to believe it, wanted to believe there was a cure. “I can love you bigger than the biggest hurt.”

“That is a great deal of love, Poppet.” Stanley tightened his grip on her.

“Do you have a lot of hurts?” Caroline asked.

Stanley tried to clear his suddenly constricted throat, blinking against the pooling moisture in his eyes. “Yes, I do.” The words were barely audible. Where had the soldier gone? Where was his self-control?

She lifted both her little hands to his face, touching his cheeks. “There are so very many of us,” Caroline whispered, leaning in close to his face. “We can love you all better.” She ran her palm along his cheek, wiping away a tear that had escaped his eye. She wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned into him.

He closed his arms around her, pulling her into a tight embrace, his hand pressed against her golden ringlets. He leaned his head against the top of hers and closed his eyes to hold back the remaining tears. One tiny girl had managed, in a matter of moments, to bring years of silent despair perilously close to the surface.