An Independent Miss (21 page)

He quickened his step, loath to
run, lest it start a rampage of speculation. He followed their path, in time to
see them get into a hansom cab.

They were leaving.

****

Bea was late to the ball, which was
only to be expected. She would have been on time, if she had arrived with Lord
Upton, but her father refused to attend and her mother wanted her daughter as
companion. Her mother would be late, because her mother was always late, so she
turned down Lord Upton’s escort.

Late enough to be on time with
everyone else. It took nearly an hour for their carriage to pull up to the
front of their destination.

She waited impatiently for the
footman to open the carriage door and let the steps down. If they weren’t too
late, Lord Upton would wait for her to arrive. She had promised him a dance.
She had also promised they would be far earlier.

The stair lowered. Bea started to
step out, felt a tug at the same moment she heard a rip and looked down.

“Oh dear, Beatrice, I’ve stepped on
your gown.” Her mother bent over the damage.

“Please, Mother,” Bea pleaded. “I
will fix it inside.”

“Wait,” her mother ordered, and fussed
with the feather in Bea’s hair.

Finally, Bea stepped down, just as
Lord Upton walked out the door with Lord Andover close behind.

“Bea? Is that you?” He called and
waved as he started her way, but Lord Andover grabbed his arm, as impatient as
Bea felt.

Upton said something to Andover,
then hurried down the stairs.

“We were delayed,” she explained,
comforted to see his disappointment.

“And we are off.” He offered a
gallant bow to Bea’s mother. “Lady Redmond.”

“Lord Upton.” She took Bea’s arm.
“Come along, Beatrice.” Suddenly in a hurry to get to the ball.

Bea hesitated. “Go ahead, Mother, I
will join you in a moment.”

“I will wait at the top of the
stairs, where I can see you,” Lady Redmond announced, managing to be both
formidable and consenting.

“It’s your cousin.” Andover told
her. “She has left with some fellow, Robbie Marshall. Do you know where they
might have gone?”

“Robbie Marshall? He’s a family
friend, a neighbor. I didn’t even know he was in town. His brother was injured
on the continent, died.”

“No, he didn’t; at least he was
still alive yesterday. Do you know where they might stay in town?”

“No.” Bea shook her head,
bewildered. “Robbie is Thomas’s friend. I can’t imagine Felicity leaving with
him.”

“Well, she did,” Rupert snapped,
softening his tone for her as he explained. “We aren’t certain Felicity wanted
to go.”

“I wouldn’t worry,” Bea defended.
“If Felicity left with him, she had a good reason.” She pulled her shawl close.
“Actually, if Robbie is here and, as you say, Jack is still with us, then
Felicity is helping to take care of him. As I said, they have been friends of
the family for donkey years.”

“Who would know where they are? Do
you have any idea?”

“Beatrice!” Her mother called from
the stairs.

“Yes, Mother, I’m coming,” she
answered, before turning back to the men. “I don’t know, and I don’t know
anyone who would.”

With one last longing look at
Upton, she bade the gentlemen a good evening and hurried after her mother.

****

The cab jostled, as it hurried
through the streets.

“Is he that much worse from this
afternoon? I thought he had stabilized,” Felicity fretted. “And even if he
didn’t, it’s not appropriate for me to intrude, not now. Your parents will want
privacy,” Felicity argued.

“He has asked for you.”

She sat back and considered that.
“He asked for me?” She watched Robbie, unease seeping through her, even with a
lifetime of memories urging her to trust him. “I can’t imagine why.”

Fierce, Robbie turned, grabbed her
shoulders. She shrieked, then bit her lip, not wanting to enrage him further.

“Of course he would ask for you!”
He shook her. “He loves you, always has, just didn’t want you waiting about for
him.”

“Calm down, Robbie.” She raised her
hands, gripped his forearms. “You’re hurting me. You don’t want Jack to think
you’d hurt me now, do you?” She moved, pried his fingers from her shoulders.

He let go, curved over, braced on
his legs. “Mother and Father are with him now.”

“How is he, Robbie? How has he
worsened?”

“I can’t change those damned things
you have on his legs and I daren’t have Mother and Father look at what you’ve
done.” He glared over his shoulder at her. “All this is breaking Mother’s
heart.”

“You’ve been a tremendous support
to him, Robbie. And Matt.” Robbie snorted. “Where is Matt?”

“I sent him on an errand.” Robbie
flexed his fist. “It should have been me on that battle field. I was meant for
action of that sort. Not Jack.”

“Robbie.” She wrapped an arm around
his shoulder. “It doesn’t make a difference. Not now.’

“It does.” His voice was the bark
of a wounded animal. “If he had been the elder, it would have been me in that
bed.” He flung back, threw Felicity off. “He didn’t have a choice, but to go
into the army. It was not something that suited his nature. He loves the land,
he was never a fighter.”

Felicity reached out again, clasped
his arm. “You cannot fault fate. It was not his place to be born first.”

“But why did it have to go this
way? There I was jealous and curt with him because I wanted a commission, but
Father refused. Instead, he forced Jack to it, when we all would have been
better off with him heading the estate. He loved the land.”

“Poor Robbie,” she soothed,
breaking his reserve, breaking his resistance, so the tears could fall.

“It isn’t fair.”

“I know, Robbie. Life often isn’t
fair, or it doesn’t seem so. But I wonder if those we lose are part of what
makes us better.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

She sat back. “You are right.”

He held his tears at bay, sat back
tense and angry, as he watched the passing scenery.

“I’ve sent Matt to get a vicar.”

“Is he that bad, Robbie? Do you
need last rites? I hadn’t…”

Robbie wouldn’t look at her. “So
you can marry.”

“What?” she snapped. “I haven’t
agreed to go along with your scheme, Robbie. Besides, no vicar will marry us
without banns or a license.”

“He deserves this much.”

Wild in his grief, his guilt, blind
to the fact a vicar would never marry them, not like this. Days in that ward,
surrounded by pain, his own brother suffering, drove him over the edge.

Crazed,
but not dangerous.

She
would be safe at the home.

Soon
others would be about.

She
would be safe.

Jack
did not want to marry her.

Robbie opened the door, jumped from
the moving carriage as they pulled up to the home. His hair an untidy mess,
beard unevenly trimmed, coat awry. So concerned with Jack, scrambling to think how
he might have worsened enough to need her, Felicity failed to notice the state
of Robbie. Truly mad with grief.

Had
Andover seen it?

They walked up the stairs, his
clasp tight enough to bruise, down a hall to the doorway of a room with four
beds, an awful stench, and moaning.

If one of them worsened with the
gangrene, they would all die of it. That was almost a certainty.

In the midst of the shadowed room,
in a lone circle of light, two people stood over a bed, their heads bowed.

Robbie sobbed and crumpled, tears
released in a torrent. His mother rushed to him, falling to her knees, holding
him.

“He is still with us, Robbie boy,
he is still with us.”

“Aye, waiting for you.” His father
nodded at Felicity. “We don’t know how to tend to him and Robbie sent that Matt
fellow off on some errand.”

And there he was, alive and
not-so-gray, their Jack, sitting up, exhausted with pain, but alive. He didn’t
try to speak, but watched Felicity and his brother, the smile for one turning
into a frown for the other.

Mrs. Matthews helped Robbie stand,
dusting him off as though she’d not been on the floor with him. “Everything is
here,” she told Felicity, as she bustled about her son

“Stop it,” he grumbled, but she
just tsk’ed and urged him to sit in the one chair.

“There’s a pouch and those—”
she pointed at the box Felicity used for maggots, “—but we don’t know
exactly how it’s done.”

“Of course not.” Dressed in silk,
pearls woven into her hair, Felicity tugged at the fingers of gloves that ran
all the way to her upper arms. “I can tend to him.”

“No, no, no.” Mrs. Marshall stopped
her. “Don’t you fret now.”

Mr. Marshall chimed in. “No need
for you to worry. Robbie picked right when he chose this Matt fellow. He’s a
good lad, been caring for all the men in these beds, doing the washes and all.”

“He said you thought they might
bring our Jack down if they worsened. So he’s helping them and all,” Mrs.
Marshall explained.

“Maggots!” Robbie snapped. No one
paid him any heed but Jack, still frowning.

A bit dazed, Felicity nodded,
leaving Robbie to his mourning as she spoke to Jack. “Helping them will help
you, Jack.”

“Aye,” he nodded and again, tried
to offer her a smile but ended up gritting his teeth. He was obviously due for
another dose of laudanum.

She took his wrist, felt for his
pulse, thready but stronger, less erratic. He stuck out his
tongue—without being asked to—and she laughed.

“Can you handle a bandage change?”
she asked him.

“Oh, no, Lady Felicity, not in your
ball gown!” Mrs. Marshall exclaimed. “You tell me what to do and…”

But Robbie had risen, pushed his
mother aside. “She’s here to marry him, Mama, not to treat him with maggots!”

“Oh, no, Robbie…” His mother
reached out, but Mr. Marshall got to him first.

“You apologize to your mother and
then you take Lady Felicity right back to where you found her,” he demanded,
but Robbie was no longer a child, to be towered over and commanded. Instead,
like a sulky child, he jerked free, glaring at his father.

“I don’t want to marry Lady
Felicity,” Jack said from the bed.

“What?” Robbie whipped around.
“You’ve always loved her. Always traipsing over to Ansley Park to talk about
plants and dirt and…”

“To see Lady Caro,” Jack whispered.

Robbie froze. “Lady Caro? But she’s
still a school girl.”

“Not such a school girl anymore, Robbie.
But you’re correct, she’s too young to be courted. Not just yet. Which is why
it’s been a secret,” Felicity explained. “She hasn’t come out yet.”

“Lady Caro?” Robbie looked from
Felicity to Jack and back. “You knew this?”

Felicity nodded.

“You didn’t tell me,” he accused.

“You would have stolen her from
school, which would have suited no one, and destroyed any respectable future
for her.”

“Because you’ve caused scandal
enough, haven’t you! It’s your fault she can’t be here!”

“Robbie!” Mr. Marshall boomed.
“Enough of this nonsense!”

“I thought you knew, Robbie.” Mrs.
Marshall, tiny whelp of a woman, wrapped her arms around her large son. “Lady
Westhaven and I have sensed it since they were babes playing on a blanket,
though we pretended not to.” She shook her head and released her hold, though
she continued to stroke his back. “We thought everyone knew.”

Robbie shook his head.

“Sit down, lad, let’s let Lady
Felicity look at your brother before you take her back to her party.”

“Of course,” Felicity said. “If I
can borrow your apron, Mrs. Marshall.” They exchanged the apron, Felicity
removed her gloves, putting them on the bedside table, “There’s a special soap
in the dish on that table. I’ll have to wash up. Do you know if there are any
maggots left…?”

****

Andover jumped from the carriage
before Upton’s driver could stop. Halfway up the outer stairs before his friend
stepped down from the conveyance.

At the top, Andover hesitated,
knowing he asked too much of his friend. “This won’t be pleasant. You needn’t
come in.”

Upton stared back. “I’ll keep you
in check.”

“In check?” Did he really seem so
sinister? “This place will make you uneasy, not my behavior.” Upton didn’t do
well with blood or wounds, or any manner of illness.

“Oh.” Nonplussed, Upton took the
stairs to meet him. “I’m still your man.” He nodded. “Lead the way.”

He did, into the shadowed interior.
A male nurse, no doubt drawn to the sound of the door opening, came out of a
back room.

“Sirs, you must have the wrong
house…”

Andover stepped up, offering coins
to the man. “I believe a Jack Marshall is in your care.”

The man tossed the coins, catching
them. “You didn’t need to pay me for that information, but it’s not a nice
place for gentlemen like yourselves.”

“Not to worry, we aren’t looking for
niceties at the moment.”

“Suit yourselves,” he nodded. “Up
another floor, turn left. Can’t miss it for the smell.”

Upton choked.

“You can wait here.” Andover told
him, but grim-faced, tight-lipped, Upton gestured him forward.

Sounds hit them before the smell. A
tortured nightmare’s scream, a voice calming, rustle of a whole ward of men
disturbed. Moans, as they readjusted back to sleep.

A haunting place. One look over his
shoulder at a wide-eyed Upton confirmed the strength of friendship. He
continued on, following the porter’s clear direction, the horrible scent a
prevalent guiding factor.

He’d found her.

Stood in the doorway to see four
people around a bed where a man lay, his raw stump of a leg uncovered.
Felicity, in her ballroom finest covered only by an apron, lent over what was
left of the man’s leg and removed large white larvae.