Chapter Six

“Oh, you’re just so dashing in yer uniform, Cap’n Jonquil.” Pluck flipped an imaginary lock of hair behind his shoulder and batted his eyelashes. Stanley was absolutely certain Pluck’s voice hadn’t been so piercingly high in a decade or more. “I’d be honored iffen ye’d sit beside me at this bang-up ball we’re attendin’.”

Stanley kept himself from smiling right up until Pluck started prancing around the room, humming several octaves above what was natural. Stanley actually laughed out loud when Pluck attempted a flitting leap.

“Oh, Cap’n, yer lyrical laughter is just music to me dainty, girlie ears!”

“It’s a very good thing you didn’t enact something like this on the Continent,” Stanley said. “The rest of the artillery would have strapped you to the cannons.”

“They’d have laughed till they wet themselves,” Pluck said. “Those boys was always laughin’ at somethin’ or other.”

“I know. We could hear the gunners laughing all night long.” Stanley turned toward his mirror, checking his appearance again. His face had filled out a little since his return, though he still wouldn’t be considered healthy looking by any stretch of the imagination. “I always wondered what was so blasted funny about gunpowder and exploding balls of lead.”

“We weren’t laughin’ about guns, Cap’n.” Pluck didn’t actually roll his eyes, but he sounded very much as if he had.

“What, then, were you laughing about?” Stanley asked. War was not at all funny.

“Stories from growin’ up. Jokes we’d heard along the way.” Pluck moved closer and gave Stanley a look over. “Most of us was from London—street kids—ye know. We seen some funny things, heard some jokes that’d make a man laugh till he cried, but not the sort ye’d tell to yer mum.”

“I would imagine not.”

Pluck straightened Stanley’s collar, then looked him up and down. “Ye look a regular rum duke, Cap’n,” he said.

Stanley doubted he cut such a handsome figure as all that.

In the next instant, Pluck’s expression showed similar doubt. “That walking stick’s something of a sorry sight. Thing ain’t even straight. Makes ye look pathetic, it does.”

“Yes, but less pathetic than I would look sprawled in a heap on the floor.” Stanley limped away. He didn’t need to be reminded of the picture he made. Lord Devereaux would be reminder enough. The man was almost ten years older than Stanley but looked younger than he did. Lord Devereaux was fit and would be considered handsome. And apparently, he and Marjie were far more than friends, despite Philip’s explanation at the theatre earlier that week.

“I ain’t suggestin’ ye go without a walking stick,” Pluck said. Stanley could tell he had followed him across the room, but he didn’t look back. “Just that ye not use that one.”

“You have a walking stick simply lying around, I suppose.” Stanley carefully smoothed his right glove. The skin beneath was tender, as always.

“Might happen to.”

Stanley did not at all like the sly edge to Pluck’s voice. He turned, careful not to dump himself on the floor in the attempt. His inert right leg did not always turn with him.

“How did you come to be in possession of a walking stick?” Stanley asked warily. “I doubt you carved it yourself.”

“I stoled it.” Pluck shrugged.

Stanley’s stomach dropped. “Pluck.” Growing up in the seedy parts of London, the young man was bound to have picked up a few undesirable habits. Stanley had not thought he was a criminal. “You cannot—”

Then he noticed Pluck was grinning. Stanley knew that look. “Where did you really get it?”

“From His High an’ Mighty Lordship,” Pluck said. He reached behind the chest of drawers and pulled out an ebony walking stick.

“The earl gave you his wife’s walking stick?” That didn’t seem likely. Sorrel couldn’t walk far without it.

“Nah.” Pluck spun the stick around in his hand. “It’s his High an’ Mighty Lordship’s own twig, it is. Says he don’t carry it no more, seein’ as how his lady cuts a finer figure with hers—she makes him look like a bumblin’ noddy by comparison.”

“It looks just like hers.” Stanley would have sworn it was Sorrel’s.

“Aye,” Pluck said. “An’ it’ll look right nice with yer uniform.” Pluck tossed the stick, and Stanley caught it with his left hand.

It was lighter, much less clumsy than his own. One would purchase just this type of fine walking stick with the intention of using it for years on end. His stick was meant as a temporary fix to his rather permanent problem. One of his men had carved it for Stanley to use while they waited to see how long he lived before infection set in.

“I don’t know.” Stanley eyed the smooth, polished wood. It wasn’t the type of implement he’d take back to the Continent with him. Practicality always trumped appearance in the army.

“C’mon,” Pluck said. “Your lady’s nearly engaged to some nambsy swell, an’ you’re gonna arrive at the ball with a log of wood what makes you look like a common beggar? What kinda soldier are ye? Cain’t head off to war with slingshots when the enemy’s armed with muskets. Even those who volunteered for a folorn hope were given ammunition, though they knew they was signin’ up for almost certain death—chargin’ the enemy first, like they was.”

“I was part of the forlorn hope at Orthez, Pluck. You don’t have to give me details.”

“An’ ye didn’t survive it by goin’ in with a target on your chest and a big sign sayin’ ‘Shoot me,’ did ye?” Pluck pulled Stanley’s outer coat from the clothes press. “Ye went in fightin’, even though everyone knew the slim chances of success.”

“Are you saying this endeavor faces similar odds?” Stanley gripped Philip’s walking stick ever tighter. He didn’t want to hear Pluck’s answer, though he knew perfectly well what it was. A hardened, broken man like he was had little to offer a beautiful, joyful young lady like Marjie.

Pluck shrugged. “Lord Devereaux’s staked his claim, and he’s claimed the stronghold. You’re rushin’ the defenses, puttin’ yourself in the line of fire. Maybe ye’ll come out the winner; maybe ye won’t.”

“Most men don’t survive a forlorn hope.” It seemed an appropriate metaphor—men rushing to death and glory in the name of battle strategy. There was a reason volunteers were used for the first attack against a fortified enemy stronghold. No one should be forced into a suicide mission. “It’s generally a lost cause.”

“When did ye begin giving up on lost causes?” An earnestness overtook Pluck’s words. “Even when a roaring fire trapped a whole battery of artillerymen, ye didn’t ride off like all the others. Ye didn’t say ‘Bad luck,’ and get on with it.” Pluck’s voice grew thick. Stanley knew the boy was reliving those moments at Waterloo when he could very easily have been burned alive. A sheen of tears too minuscule to be noticed by anyone who didn’t understand the devastating impact of battle memories hung on Pluck’s lashes. “Ye pulled a worthless street orphan outta the flames ’cause ye didn’t give up on ’im.”

Stanley squared his shoulders against the weight of his own recollections. Soldiers never permitted their emotions to surface. “Pluck—”

“A man who’d do that ain’t the sort to let some highbrow cove run off with his woman.”

“Miss Kendrick was never actually mine.” Even the tentative claim he’d once had was no longer valid. He’d been whole before physically, if not entirely mentally. Though the war had taken a toll before Waterloo, he’d had some hope of putting the years of bloodshed behind him. That hope had drowned in the muddy fields near Brussels.

Exasperation filled Pluck’s eyes. “Ye didn’t let the Frenchies have Orthez. Don’t let ol’ Lordy-Pants have your lady.”

“Ol’ Lordy-Pants? That is an expression you’d best not say in front of anyone else.”

“Time to be a man, Cap’n. Rush the wall. Fight for what’s yours.”

“You are missing a rather vital aspect of the analogy, Pluck.” Stanley, however, had caught on immediately. “In the end, we gave Orthez back. It never belonged to us.”

“Aye, but it didn’t belong to ol’ Nappy, now, did it?”

“Are you comparing Lord Devereaux to Napoleon?”

“I’m only sayin’ if you ain’t planning to try and win Miss Kendrick for yerself, at least make certain she’s getting a good deal, you know?”

“Save her from the cruel clutches of a heartless dictator?”

“An’ if you steal a bit o’ her heart along the way”—Pluck managed to look almost coy—“well, them’s the spoils of war. And it’s somethin’ to carry back with ye when Daddy Hill comes a-callin’.”

A little bit of her heart. It was more than he deserved, but heaven help him, he needed it. He needed the reassurance that there was some part of him that was good and unsullied enough for an earthbound angel to love.

“So what’s it gonna be, Cap’n?” Pluck asked. “The target-on-my-chest, shoot-me-sign walking stick or the fancy, look-out-Lord-Nimbsy-Bum-I’m-watchin’-ye one?”

“Nimbsy-bum?”

Pluck didn’t answer beyond a crisp nod.

Stanley tossed his rough-hewn walking stick to Pluck. Philip’s stick fit oddly in his scarred hand, but he would adjust. He was determined to.

“Forlorn hope?” Pluck asked with a grin.

Stanley nodded. “Time to rush the wall.”

Pluck shoved a fist in the air.

“Don’t you dare start prancing around like a little girl again.”

“But, Cap’n Jonquil, ye’re just so han’some and heroic,” Pluck answered in that ridiculously high voice he’d used before. He batted his eyelashes again, so Stanley shoved him with his free hand.

Pluck laughed, and Stanley couldn’t help doing the same.

A knock echoed off the door. “Stanley?” What was Marjie doing at his door?

“Rush the wall, Cap’n.”

Stanley hobbled in that direction. “You’ve got it wrong, Pluck. She is the city, not the wall.”

“Either way.”

Stanley opened the door, his heart thudding far too loudly. He’d done his best to look presentable but knew he paled in comparison with Lord Devereaux.

“Good evening, Mar—” Her brows were drawn, her eyes pleading. “What is it?”

“I went down to the entryway to wait, and Sorrel was there, sitting in a chair. She looks ill. She’s pale, and her eyes are glossed over.” Marjie wrung her hands. “She hates when I fuss over her, but I’m worried. I am certain she is on the verge of one of her fevers. She would let Philip help her—I know she would—but I don’t know where he is.”

“He’s probably in his rooms.” Stanley looked over his shoulder at Pluck. “Deliver a message to his lordship. Tell him his wife appears to be ill and he is needed in the entryway.”

“Yes, Cap’n Jonquil.” Pluck snapped a salute that was, for once, not even remotely cheeky. He left quickly, an advantage to having a young, energetic valet and a reasonably well-trained soldier.

Stanley turned back toward Marjie. The worry hadn’t left her eyes. “You and I will go down to the entryway and see that Sorrel is well.”

He stepped from his room, intending to make his way downstairs. Marjie didn’t follow as he’d expected her to.

“But Philip says I’m not supposed to make a fuss over her,” she said. The lines of worry hadn’t left her forehead.

“No fuss,” Stanley said. “We’ll simply keep an eye on her.”

Marjie nodded, though she still seemed hesitant.

“If they voice any objections, we’ll tell them it was my idea,” Stanley said.

Marjie smiled a little. “They’ll never believe you.”

“I’ll take my chances.” Stanley motioned for her to come with him. “Let’s go make sure Sorrel is well. It may take Pluck a minute or two to track down Philip.”

For a moment, he lifted his arm, intending to offer his hand. She looked very much as if she needed a reassuring touch. He realized almost on the instant that he required both hands to navigate the stairs. His hand fell back to his side.

Rush the wall. How ridiculously pompous it sounded. He could hardly walk down a flight of stairs.

“I hope Philip can convince her to stay home tonight,” Marjie said as they walked slowly down the stairs. “Sorrel can be very stubborn about these things, and she ends up only more ill than before. I don’t want her to suffer.”

When a man loved a woman, he simply didn’t allow anyone or anything to hurt her, not if he could possibly prevent it. Philip loved Sorrel. He could be trusted to do all he could to secure her welfare.

Marjie’s compassion had always astounded him. Her beauty had taken his breath away from the first moment they’d met. Her sweetness had been a balm to a soul ravaged by the violence of war.

He would never let anyone hurt her or make her unhappy, even if it meant making sure she found a gentleman who was better for her than he could ever be.