Helena’s eyes filled with tears. Her mind told her that such happiness could not last, but at the same time, her heart wanted desperately to believe that it could.
Brett felt the uncertainty tormenting her. He wanted to say something, do something that would convince her, as he himself was now convinced that it was absolutely the right thing to do, but he could not. He could not
make
her see anything,
make
her do anything. He knew her too well. She was too independent, too accustomed to relying on her own intelligence for him to make up her mind for her.
Gently he pulled her to her feet cupping her face in his hands. “Do not fret, my love. I should have never rushed you into thinking of such things except that I shall be rather busy for a while. But I want you to know that I am yours ... forever. That is all. You do not need to worry about the rest.” Softly, he kissed her on the forehead and then headed toward the door,
He had not gotten more than a few steps when she whispered, “Brett?”
He turned around and she flung herself into his arms. They closed around her and he kissed her until she was breathless, until she wrapped her own arms around his neck, until her lips clung to his as though her life depended on it.
“Brett.” She pulled away at last to look up at him, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “Do be careful.”
He grinned. “Of course I will. I always am, else you would never have met me. I love you.”
“And I love you too.”
He held her close, savoring every detail, storing it in his mind forever, the soft touch of her hair on his cheek, the faint scent of rose water, the beating of her heart, the tenderness of her hands caressing his face, the intelligence and understanding in her eyes, and the sweet curve of her lips. At last he sighed and set her away from him. “And that is all that matters. Remember always that I love you.”
Then he was gone. And she was left alone to stare blindly after him out of the window, watching as the tall figure strode down the Rue Montagne du Parc toward headquarters.
Chapter Twenty-nine
The princess found her daughter some time later sitting alone in the salon. Helena was still staring out of the window as though her soul had just taken flight and escaped through it.
Her mother sighed gently and went to fetch a cashmere shawl, which she draped around her daughter’s shoulders. Whatever had passed between her daughter and Major Lord Brett Stanford, there was nothing left to do now, nothing left but wait and pray.
And wait they did, for every scrap of news they could glean. Fortunately for them, their neighbor, the Marquis of Juarenais seemed always to be a fount of information and the first to know the latest news. It was he who told them that the Prussians had been driven out of Charleroi by the French and explained that the distant sound of cannonading they had heard the next day came from the battle at Quatre Bras, where the Duke of Brunswick had been slain.
The princess had turned pale at the news, but Helena had hastened to reassure her. “I am sure that if anything bad happened to papa, you would be the first to know.”
“Perhaps.” The princess sank back down into the chair she had risen from when the marquis had first entered their salon full of the news. “And what do they say of the rest of the forces, monsieur?”
The marquis shook his head slowly. He departed, only to return the next day with the information that Blücher had been soundly beaten by Bonaparte and was in full retreat. The marquis urged them to pack their belongings and join the crowd of refugees fleeing toward Antwerp and the boats that could take them to England. “You know that is what your husband would wish you to do,” he encouraged the princess.
The marquis’ wife seconded her husband’s opinion. “You told me yourself, madame, that the Prince von Hohenbachern made sure that the horses and carriage were all in order, in case of just such an emergency, and believe me, this is an emergency.”
But the princess shook her head. “No, I must be here when he returns, whatever happens. And I am sure that Helena feels the same.”
Helena swallowed hard and nodded, her throat too tight to speak. She had spent two sleepless nights worrying about Brett as she listened to the sounds of marching feet, the rumble of baggage wagons, and the steady clop of hooves as the troops moved out of the city toward the approaching French. And she had listened with her heart in her mouth to the distant cannonading, cursing herself for being a fool. How could she have sent Brett off the way she had? Why had she been so afraid to say that she would spend the rest of her life with him? What if there were no life to spend, and she had sent him off with nothing more than
I
love
you?
The reports slowly filtered in, but they were so conflicting as to be useless. Still, the troops, baggage, and horses kept moving away from the city, making their way down the Rue Namur, which was choked with traffic, far into that night and the following one. Horses were bivouacked all around the park, and that night it became clear that there was to be a battle fought the next day that would be so desperate it would make the other engagements they had heard about appear like the merest skirmishes.
Helena stayed at the salon windows most of the night, watching the troops move slowly by, hoping to catch a glimpse of one particular horseman, though in the press of troops she knew it was a vain hope.
It did not seem as though she slept at all, but somehow, she found herself uncomfortably awakened by the pale light of dawn, having fallen asleep in a chair by the window. She rose and went to her bedchamber to splash cold water on her face; however, she could not touch the rolls Hannechen had brought her for breakfast.
“Please, mademoiselle. Your mother says you must eat something,” the maid insisted.
“Very well.” Too worried and preoccupied to argue, Helena drank a cup of chocolate before returning to her seat by the window where her mother soon joined her.
“There continues to be a great deal of movement in the streets, but I still cannot be sure what is happening.” The princess peered off in the distance, but saw nothing that helped answer her question.
They both sat tense and quiet for what seemed like hours, until finally the booming of cannon could be beard off in the direction that the troops had been moving, beyond the Porte Namur.
And soon the trickle of wounded began to return to the city. The trickle became a stream and then a veritable tide. Helena rose to her feet. “I cannot bear this any longer. I cannot just sit here wondering what has happened, if he is hurt or ... I must
do
something. I am going to see what I can do to help these poor fellows just as I hope someone would help Brett... or Papa.”
She went off to find Hannechen, and for the next few hours they gathered up all the lint in the house, searched out and tore up every available scrap of material that could be used for bandages. Then they headed out to offer any assistance needed, Helena carrying the bandages and her maid following her with buckets of water.
They did not have far to go. Wounded and exhausted soldiers straggled through the streets, collapsing in doorways and leaning up against any sheltering wall they could find.
The rest of the interminable day passed in a blur as Helena and Hannechen cleaned and dressed wounds as best they could, poured water into parched throats and distributed foods to those who had the strength to eat. As she bandaged wounds and gently wiped brows furrowed with exhaustion and pain, Helena tried to push all thoughts of another soldier from her mind. Was he lying hurt somewhere on the field, or, worse yet, dead?
And if he were dead, what use would her life be without him? Now she marveled at herself, marveled that she had tried to protect herself from hurt by denying how much she loved him, how much he meant to her. How silly that denial seemed now. What did it matter if she were hurt in the end? At least she would have been happy, felt that her life was full for a little while. Without him, her life was no life anyway, whether he were killed or whether she sent him away to protect her precious independence. If he survived and came back to her, she resolved to be with him, despite her fears of being left alone in the long run. Any time with him at all was precious. She would take anything she could get even if by doing so she was courting the possibility of being hurt in the end.
Day faded into evening and still the wounded kept coming. Helena was practically fainting with exhaustion herself when a wounded officer of the guards staggered to their very doorstep. She and Hannechen led him into the kitchen, where they began to bandage the saber cut on his head and another wound on his arm where the flesh had been torn by a spent bullet.
“Thank you, ladies,” he gasped as he swallowed the cup of brandy Hannechen held to his lips. “Thank God they are at last in retreat, for I have never seen a fiercer fighting in all my days.”
“They are in retreat you say?”
The soldier mustered a weary smile at the eager note in Helena’s voice. “I should think so, my lady. It was about half past four when the duke himself was in our square, and he asked one of his aides what time it was. On being told it was nearly half past four, he responded,
The battle is mine: and if the Prussians arrive soon, there will be an end to the war.”
It was not long after that, around five o’clock, I think, that we were given the order to charge. We were up against the Imperial Guards themselves, but we ran down the slope at them and soon had them in full retreat. It was then that I got this.” He pointed ruefully to the saber cut. “And I thank you for fixing me up right and tight. I shall just have another swig of brandy if you can spare it, and then I shall be off.” He took another long drink from the cup and then, before either Helena or Hannechen could stop him, headed back toward the Porte Namur.
It was at that point Helena laid down the bowl of water and bandages. “Here, Hannechen. Do what you can for them. I am going to saddle up Nimrod, and then I am going myself to see ... to see.” Tears clouded her eyes and the lump in her throat made it impossible to say more, but the maid understood. She had watched her mistress tending the wounded tirelessly all day, and she knew that to her mistress, every man she bandaged, every man to whom she gave a drink was one in the same. They were all Major Lord Brett Stanford.
“But, Helena, you cannot go. A young lady wandering about the battlefield all alone in the middle of the night.” The princess was horrified to discover her daughter donning her riding habit a few minutes later.
“It is not the middle of the night. Mama, and besides, there are wives, mothers, daughters, sweethearts, and family members of every description going out there to look for their loved ones. Do not worry, I shall take Hans with me. I am also taking Nimrod with me in case he is wounded. The road is far too crowded for any hope of a carriage being able to get through, otherwise I would take that.”
“I understand, my dear, believe me I do.” The princess’ voice broke as she laid a hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “But you do not even know where to look.”
“I
will
find him. Mama.” Helena gave her mother a brief swift hug and then she was off, accompanied by the burly footman, to join the crowd making its way toward the Porte Namur.
She stopped first at headquarters to see if she could learn anything at all about Brett’s whereabouts, but beyond the vague intelligence that he had been assigned to carry dispatches between General Maitland and the duke and the general disposition of Maitland’s troops on the battlefield, she could learn nothing further. “Then that will have to do.” Helena remounted Nimrod and they headed off, keeping to the side of the road, for the road itself was so crowded with wagons, carts, and carriages full of wounded as to be impassable.
Every half a mile or so she would stop and inquire of a wagonload of wounded the spot where General Maitland and his troops had last been seen until she had almost arrived at Mont St. Jean itself. Clouds of acrid smoke from the guns still hung in the air and through it, she could just barely make out the forms of other searchers silhouetted against the glow of the campfires that were being lit here and there. The moans of the wounded and the heaps of bodies—horses and men—were almost more than she could bear, but she kept on steadily, asking whomever she could if they had seen an aide-de-camp wearing the uniform of a major in the First Hussars carrying dispatches between Maitland and his commander in chief.
She was almost at the place that the injured soldier back in Brussels had described as being the site of the final charge, and feeling herself nearly overwhelmed by the vastness of the scene before her, the hopelessness of it all, and the futility of her own quest, she was beginning to doubt that she would find Brett when Nimrod snorted and pricked up his ears. Helena looked up to see a horse approaching, its rider slumped forward over its neck.
There was something about the arch of the animal’s neck and its powerful hindquarters that looked faintly familiar. “Rex!” She was barely conscious of having said anything, but the approaching horse flicked its own ears and snorted in return.
“Rex. Oh, Rex.” She urged Nimrod forward until she could see for certain that it was indeed Rex. But could the poor limp body draped across his back belong to Brett? Surely not.
Helena jumped down, thrust the reins at Hans, and hurried over to Rex’s side. There was blood running down the soldier’s face from a cut in his temple and a dark stain around a ragged hole in his shoulder, but it was indeed Brett. She grabbed his hand, feeling frantically for a pulse. At least it was still warm, but either the pulse was too weak or she was too distraught to detect it. “Brett, Brett, my love, please do not die now. Please. I love you.”
She reached up gently to touch his face, desperately searching for any sign of life. She held her hand in front of his lips, surely there was breath coming from them.
Then as her fingertips touched his lips, his eyelids fluttered.
“Brett, Brett, please tell me that you are alive.”