Carla Kelly (18 page)

“Hey, there, you ought to give it to me, Wilkie,” Harper said. “I’m a little farther away from the ground than you are.”

Wilkie drew himself up to his full height. “You, Private, are a cutpurse, a sneak, and a soft-soaping opportunist. I do not trust you with my ham.”

Harper just rolled his eyes. “And
you
are more trustworthy?”

“Really, gentlemen,” Elinore scolded. In the satchel containing bandages and plasters, she placed the rest of the bread that Jesse and Daniel had earned at their clinic. She wrapped the cheese carefully in a cloth and added it to the satchel that used to be the chief surgeon’s. She hesitated. “Jesse, should I ask Monsieur Leger to carry it?”

“Why not? He is probably planning to eat on this journey. Aren’t you, sir?”

“I do not, as a rule, carry parcels,” the Frenchman said.

“You will make an exception, won’t you?” Jesse asked. “I do so dislike eating in front of people.”

It didn’t sound particularly threatening to him, but Harper gave him a look and straightened up, and Leger took the bag and slung it over his shoulder. Not glancing at any of them, he started down the road to Salamanca. Jesse watched him go. “My father took the Grand Tour of Europe once, before Napoleon, when people took such trips. He told me that without fail, every tour contained someone better left behind at a rest stop.”

She laughed. “Imagine touring Europe just to see things.”

“Would you like to do that someday?”

She considered the matter, and he liked the way she pursed her lips in thought. “No, I think not,” she said at last. “I think I have seen enough of Europe.”

He heard the wistfulness in her voice, and it touched him. He wanted to tell her about his parents and their home in Dunfermline on the Firth of Forth, and his own house in Dundee—legacy from a grandfather—waiting for him. She will think I am boasting, he told himself and said nothing.

He visited the patients one last time. Marlowe was sitting up and taking an interest in his surroundings. “I could come along, Captain,” he said. “I hate to think that you have to depend on the soldiering abilities of the likes of Wilkie and Harper.”

Jesse sat beside him. “Corporal Marlowe, you are all kindness, but I fear you are not quite ready for a long walk. I trust that you will be helpful here in Santos.”

It wrenched his heart to leave his patients, even though he knew they were in Dan O’Leary’s capable hands. He thought of Major Bones and the terrible deeds he had set
in motion, and the pages from Souham’s saddlebags that Elinore had tucked in the bit of doubled-over sacking that protected his lancets and bone saw. Hippocrates, was life so complicated in Greece? he asked as he stood still for Father Esteban to bless him, then joined the others on the long road that led to the Portuguese border.

The afternoon was calm and cool as they began their retreat. Father Esteban had told them to expect no shelter this night, because they were at least a day’s walk to the next village. After a mile or two, they had adjusted to each other’s strides, which meant that Harper and Wilkie began in front. Armand Leger was a speck in the distance. Jesse slowed his walked to suit Elinore’s smaller step, but he could not overlook her frown. “What is it, my dear?”

“I am going to slow down everyone,” she said. “I don’t mean to.”

He clapped his arm around her shoulder. “Elinore, we can suit ourselves now.”

“You are so certain?” she asked, her expression doubtful.

He looked around elaborately. “Who is there to tell us what to do? As senior officer commanding, this is my retreat, and I like it this way.” She smiled at him, and he knew there was not a more beautiful woman in all Spain.

He hoped she would want to talk, but he felt shy then, as he invariably did when he thought of her beauty and kindness, and his own inadequacies. Harper and Wilkie were talking and laughing some paces ahead, and he wanted to tell her how long he had admired her, and his plans for their future. He wanted to describe each room of his home in Dundee, from the sunny little sitting room off the large bedroom upstairs that overlooked a flower garden and an herb patch, to the room down the hall that he knew would make an excellent nursery. No, no, that would embarrass her, he thought, then smiled to himself, thinking of the rough birth only the night before. I am an idiot. Maybe I should tell her of the blue saloon downstairs and the dining room, and the room off the main floor next to the book room that would make an excellent office and dispensary for my practice. You would never have to move again, my love.

He said nothing, too tied up in his thoughts. He glanced
at her, and saw how she appeared to be struggling to say something to him. To his surprise, she stopped in the road. “I have to ask you something,” she said in a rush.

“Please do,” he said, and waved on Harper and Wilkie, who had stopped, too.

She shifted the satchel to her other shoulder, and looked down at the ground, for all the world a drab little figure in her brown cloak. He took in her shabbiness, and it pained him that she knew nothing better. When she would not look up, he touched her shoulder. She raised her glance as high as the middle button on his uniform.

“Captain, I don’t know how to say this,” she began, her words coming as slowly as though each one was pulled by the roots. “All that happened yesterday is my fault.”

He couldn’t believe his ears. “Elinore….”

“No. It is,” she insisted. “If I had just gone with Major Bones, you know that the Chief would be alive. Number Eight would still be protected by a regiment, and Private Jenks would be alive. Major Bones would not have killed the alcalde, and his daughter would be safe.” She looked at him then, and there was no disguising the anguish in her eyes. “Why did you have to be so kind? No one else in the regiment has ever given me a thought, or cared about my mother.”

“Surely you did not want to go with Major Bones?” Oh, stop me, Hippocrates, he thought in desperation. I sound like a prude.

“How can you think that?” She looked at the ground again, and he knew he had humiliated her. “It’s just that…that…the wearisome Masons set something in motion, and we do not know how far those consequences will extend. I am sorry. I…I…suppose I just hope that you do not have too many regrets. I will do what I can to be useful, but I would never dream of holding you to any promises made in haste. Please believe me.”

He took her by the shoulders, and peered into her troubled face. He knew he wanted to pull her as close as he could and tell her how much he loved her, but he also knew that in her present state, she would not believe him. He wondered what would be the right thing, and feared to say anything. The distress grew on her face.

Slowly, carefully, he put his arms around her, and pulled
her close against his body. She started in surprise at his nearness. “Elinore, you have to understand one thing right now,” he said softly, speaking into her hair. “This was not your fault.”

“It was!” she insisted, and he winced at the bitterness in her voice. “You and the Chief know that the Masons have always been bad luck.”

“And didn’t I tell you that you would have Randall luck now?”

It must have been the way he said it. The moment the words left his mouth, he could almost see them as animate objects, looking back at him, covering their little mouths and chortling. “God, what a stupid thing I just said,” he told her. “Here we are in the middle of nowhere with hams and cheese around our necks and olive oil, and sugar for medicine, French everywhere, and I brag about Randall luck! You must think you have married the barmiest lunatic who ever broke loose from his muzzle and chain.”

He knew he had stopped her destructive thought process by the wondering way she stared at him. “I should be locked up in a cage, Elinore, and only allowed out to…to piddle in a pot and drool into a washrag.”

She laughed. More than that, she obviously couldn’t help herself. She didn’t break away from his hold on her, but leaned into him now, laughing. He didn’t know if he should be alarmed or not, but he didn’t hear any high-pitched edge to her laughter. He realized with a start that he had never heard her laugh like that before, a hearty sound that made him want to laugh, too. He looked at the soldiers. They were grinning, even though they couldn’t have heard their exchange. It was that kind of a laugh.

She laughed until she had to put her hand to her middle, then leaned away and sat herself down on a sun-warmed boulder by the road. She sat there with her legs apart and her elbows resting on her knees and looked up at him, her eyes merry. She looked worlds away from the quiet young woman who helped in the hospital tent.

He came closer and laid his hand on her head for just a moment. “Don’t go assigning blame, my dear,” he said quietly. There wasn’t much room, but he sat beside her, their rumps touching. “We have bigger challenges ahead of us.”

She touched his hand. “I just couldn’t leave it unsaid,
Captain.” She hesitated, and again it was as though the words waited to tumble out. “I’ve lived my whole life so far with people who never said what they felt. I don’t think it made them happy. I don’t want that now. If I am boorish at times, if I fumble, please know this: I want to get it right.”

She was looking at him so earnestly that he forgot for a moment the precariousness of their present situation. The rock was warm, she was close, and he wanted to kiss and hang the fact that Harper and Wilkie were watching. To his serious irritation, reason prevailed, and he did nothing more than nudge her a little. “You’ll get it even righter if you call me Jesse now instead of Captain.”

She nodded, and he could almost feel her shyness. “Yes, I should.” She smiled then in the familiar way she had in the hospital tent, where she would look down and smile as she turned away, a fleeting smile that had always seemed like the veriest glimpse of paradise to him. “Yes, I should do it. After all, we are married.”

“We are.”

When night overtook them, the only sign of civilization was a crude shrine where two roads intersected. Signs of the retreating army were everywhere: a discarded canteen, paper caught in a bush, the deep tracks of wagons and cannons hauled through mud that was hardening now, but only waited another rain to turn it back into sludge. A sign indicated that the nearest town wouldn’t be reached until long after darkness fell.

He asked the others about continuing on, but no one seemed inclined. He didn’t have to ask them why. After what had happened last night, the idea of approaching another village at dusk had no appeal. Also unspoken among them was the fear that through every village, Major Bones was warning the citizens of stragglers to follow.

He gave grudging credit to Harper, because the man had an eye for a good campsite. With Jesse’s reluctant permission, he asked to go ahead, and returned not fifteen minutes later. “I’ve found as nice a spot as anyone could wish.”

A quarter mile from the road was a small meadow with a spring gurgling from rocks. Through some alchemy—perhaps because the meadow was protected by a decent-sized
ridge—the leaves still clung to trees. Though not vibrant green anymore, at least the grass did not crunch dry and dead underfoot. Across a small river or large stream, depending on one’s way of looking at things, he supposed, they could see an estate.

“Do you suppose this is their land?” Elinore asked as she unslung the two satchels she carried and removed her cloak. “I hope they do not mind.”

Her words told him volumes, even if she had not faltered during the long afternoon of steady walking. He knew from long experience that she did not complain, but he also knew that she generally rode with the hospital baggage train or on horseback with her mother, at least when Mason hadn’t gambled away the family’s horses. With a look around, she walked into the bushes, probably in need of a moment’s solitude to take care of personal matters. He made a point to stand between her and others until she came out of the bushes again, smoothing down her dress.

“Thank you,” she said, too shy to look at him.

The sun went down as the night grew cool. Wilkie suggested a fire, and Jesse pondered the matter before agreeing to a modest one. “After all, Private, I do not know if we should be more concerned about the Spanish, the French, or Major Bones,” he said.

“All three, Captain,” Wilkie said emphatically as he cleared a circle, lined it with stones, and started a small fire.

Armand Leger had been walking ahead of them all afternoon, and Jesse had forgotten about him. While Elinore was slicing cheese and Harper peeling sticks for toasting bread, he joined them again, standing on the edge of the clearing until Jesse motioned him over.

“You should not have let me walk on like that,” he accused.

“Oh, you speak English,” Jesse said, refusing to let the man disrupt the serenity that was beginning to settle around him. “Perhaps in future you could stay closer to us.”

“You could walk faster if the woman did not slow you down. You should have left her in Santos. How will we ever get to the border?”

Bastard, Jesse thought. “I would leave you first,” he replied, turning to add more wood to the fire.

He hoped Elinore had not heard, but the vigorous way she started slicing the cheese told him otherwise. “He’s right, you know,” she said in an angry voice.

“No, he isn’t,” Jesse contradicted. “I’m depending on your Spanish, and also the fact that you are a woman. Soldiers must surely be less suspicious, if there is a woman.”

She made no comment, but he could tell she was thinking about his words. In another minute, she began to hum as she stacked the cheese on a flat rock by the fire.

When it was full dark, they sat by the fire eating bread dipped in olive oil and toasted cheese. Wilkie provided the ham. No one talked. They had not eaten since Santos, and the food went down like a six-course banquet. Elinore sat closer to the fire, expertly turning the cheese fork that Harper had made for her, careful not to set the stick blazing, or allow the cheese to drip into the fire. He moved closer to her, content to prop himself against the small boulder she sat on, and watch her graceful motions.