Dotty put the tray on the bedside table.
“Miss Betty was asking after you, Mrs. Smith. She said the vicar and his wife are visiting in the front parlor.”
“Then I’ll come down.”
Amelia rose from the side of the bed and smoothed down her skirts. Her patient was looking a lot better today and had made far more sense. He had very dark blue eyes and an old scar on his forehead that only added to the austerity of his features. His obvious distress as to his loss of memory made her feel rather protective of him.
“I’ll come back and sit with you later, sir.”
“Thank you.”
Whoever he was, he had impeccable manners. She went down the stairs, and after patting her hair to make sure it was tidy, made her entrance into the small front parlor where Aunt Betty was presiding over the tea tray.
“Ah, there you are, my love. The Sherringhams were just asking after our patient.”
“He is recovering nicely.” Amelia curtsied to the vicar and his wife and then took the seat beside Betty.
Doris Sherringham patted her hand. “You are such an inspiration to us all, Mrs. Smith. As I was just saying to your aunt, I wouldn’t bring a ruffian I saw on the street into the bosom of
my
family.”
“I doubt he’s a ruffian, Mrs. Sherringham. He is simply a military man who has fallen on hard times. Aiding his recovery is the least that I can do.”
The vicar cleared his throat. “You should have informed me, my dear Mrs. Smith. I would’ve been pleased to call the parish constable and have the man removed.”
“To the poorhouse where he would probably have caught something and died?” Amelia smiled. “I wouldn’t wish that fate on anyone.”
“There is no infection that I know of currently at the poorhouse, but you do have a point, ma’am.” The vicar sighed heavily. “There are so many in need. I hardly know how to help them.”
Amelia had several suggestions, but she already knew none of them would be appreciated or welcomed. The vicar was a good man, but not one who liked to become personally involved in solving the more sordid issues of his parish. After a year of arguing with him, she’d simply gone her own way and formed committees of like-minded individuals who
were
prepared to tackle the problem of feeding and housing the poor. There was a reason why the poorhouse was currently free of infection, and it had nothing to do with the vicar. It was all down to better sanitation and diet.
“Darling Algernon doesn’t like me to visit the poorhouse, or I would be there every week.” The glance Doris gave her husband was full of gratitude. “He fears with my delicate constitution I might fall ill and worse still bring back pestilence to our little ones at home.”
Amelia smiled. “No one could doubt your dedication to the poor in this parish, Mrs. Sherringham. The baskets you provide are the stuff of legends.”
The vicar’s wife blushed. “I do try and keep up with all the births, deaths and sickness of our little flock.”
“And you do it very well. I cannot imagine how many sets of baby clothes you make a year.”
“It does take its toll on my time and my health, but it is worth it.”
Amelia knew that it was a spinster cousin dependent on Doris’s good will who did the majority of the work. As long as Doris added a few stitches occasionally and criticized her cousin’s sewing, she felt justified in claiming the whole enterprise as her own.
Aunt Betty poured the tea and Amelia rose to hand the cups and saucers around. Mrs. Sherringham was the second to bear that name and was much younger and far more fashionably dressed than her husband, who favored a severe clerical black at all times.
“When do you expect your latest patient to be well enough to leave, Mrs. Smith?” the vicar asked. “I understand from your aunt that he is unsure of his identity.”
“From what I can tell, he was knocked unconscious by a blow to his head, which appears to have affected his memory.”
“That’s unfortunate. Have you thought of writing to his regimental commander to find out more about him?”
“I’m not quite sure who that might be. The insignia on his coat is missing.”
The vicar leaned forward. “A deserter?”
“I have no idea, Mr. Sherringham, but I suspect he has been away from these shores for a very long time. Whatever his situation, I intend to treat him as a veritable prodigal son.”
“Be careful that he doesn’t turn out to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing, Mrs. Smith.” The vicar chuckled at his own joke.
“I’ll certainly bear it in mind,” she said gravely. Her dry sense of humor and sense of the ridiculous never worked with the all-too earnest vicar and his wife. She missed having someone to laugh with at the absurdities of life. She missed it desperately.
“How does he sound when he speaks, Mrs. Smith?”
Amelia blinked at Doris. “What do you mean?”
“Is his speech rustic or
common,
or does he speak like a gentleman?”
“Like a gentleman, I suppose.”
Mrs. Sherringham sat back. “Then he is probably not a deserter. Gentlemen don’t do that.”
Amelia begged to differ. In the heat of a battle, she’d seen several aristocrats running just as fast, if not faster, from the threat of conflict. Some of them had even ridden over her in their haste to get away. “Marco” spoke like a man used to issuing orders.
“What is his name?”
“He’s not quite sure of that either.”
The vicar and his wife exchanged a startled glance.
“Not sure of his own name? Oh my goodness!” Doris pressed her hand to her ample bosom.
“Head injuries have that effect sometimes, Mrs. Sherringham. I expect it will come back to him when he is well rested and in better health.” Amelia offered the vicar another macaroon.
“I was about to offer to write to his family for you, Mrs. Smith, but if he doesn’t recall his own name that isn’t possible.” The vicar shook his head. “It’s very sad. I will pray for him.”
“I’m sure he’d appreciate that, sir,” Amelia agreed. “Whatever happens, I have assured him that we will keep him safe at Dove Cottage until he has recovered.”
“You are an example to Christian women everywhere, Mrs. Smith.”
Amelia smiled but didn’t reply, busying herself with adding sugar to her tea. She didn’t think she was remarkable at all. Sharing what she had with those who needed it had become second nature when she’d lived with the army. Despite the fact that compared to the Sherringhams and the Spendlows she had almost nothing, she had far more than she’d learned to live on in the past.
Dove Cottage belonged to Matthew’s Aunt Betty, and, between her private income and Amelia’s army pension, they managed to get by. She was safe here. After the last turbulent years of following the drum, that security had appealed to her immensely.
The vicar began to talk about his upcoming sermon, and Amelia fixed an attentive look on her face. Living here might be safe, but it was also stultifying… She knew everything about her neighbors, and they knew all she was willing to share with them about herself. If she didn’t have her good works to keep her busy, she suspected she might launch herself off one of the high cliffs the village was named for and plunge screaming like one of the many seagulls into the water.
Except the seagulls resurfaced after they caught their fish, and Amelia would probably sink to the bottom, weighed down by her petticoats.
She must teach herself to swim properly.
“And what do you think, Mrs. Smith?” the vicar asked.
She clasped her hands together and gave him her most fervent look. “It sounds as if we are all in for a treat on Sunday, sir. I can’t wait to hear you proclaim these words from the pulpit.”
He took her compliments as his right and returned to his favorite topic—the state of the nation and the incompetency of the Prince Regent—but eventually even he ran out of new things to say and rose to leave.
After speaking with Betty and Cook about the upcoming menus for the next week and instructing Dotty about how to dry the rose petals from the front garden, Amelia was finally free to escape upstairs and speak to her mysterious patient. She paused on the stairs and considered her excitement. Was she wrong to want to live vicariously through another man’s journey to health?
She yearned to have a conversation with someone who had been more than twenty miles away from the place of his or her birth. Even in his present state, Marco was more interesting than most of the village. As she had the thought, she chided herself for it. She’d received nothing but kindness from the villagers since she’d first arrived. Her own dissatisfaction was the problem, not her companions’ lack of curiosity.
Knocking on the door, she opened it a crack to see her patient sitting up against his pillows, one hand cradling a cup and an empty plate.
“Let me take those from you.” She removed the utensils from his lap and put them on the tray Dotty had left on the side table. “I’ll make you some more tea presently.”
“That would be very kind of you, but please take your time.”
She took the seat next to his bed and drew out her darning. “The vicar and his wife came to inquire about your state of health.”
He frowned. “How do they know about me?”
“It is a very small village. Everyone knows everything.” She checked her needle was threaded correctly. “Or if they don’t, they make it up.”
“I see little has changed in my absence in that respect, then.” He hesitated. “Is it really eighteen hundred and fifteen?”
“I’m afraid it is. When you are feeling better, I can borrow a newspaper from the vicar and you can verify that for yourself.”
“I’m not doubting you, it’s just that I have a sense that I’ve been away for many years. That I was somehow prevented from returning.”
She looked up at him, her needle balanced between her finger and thumb. “Mayhap you were a prisoner? With the war being over now, perhaps someone decided you no longer had any value and set you free.”
“The war is over?”
“Yes. It took the Duke of Wellington two attempts to convince the Emperor that he really had been defeated, but in the end he managed it. There was a great victory at a battle called Waterloo. Napoleon is in exile on the island of Elba now. Hopefully for good.”
He blinked his dark blue eyes at her. “We won?”
“Naturally, or else we’d all be frantically practicing our French as we were forced to become part of Napoleon’s empire.”
“I thought we were going to lose. When I was in Portugal, we—” He shook his head. “Damnation, I can’t remember what I was going to say.”
“It’s still progress, sir. You were obviously in Portugal with your regiment at some point and probably in Spain, too. Now all we have to do is work out
which
regiment you belonged to and find out who you are.”
His answering smile was strained. “Or who I was. I…don’t think I’m that man anymore. How could I be?”
“I should imagine that the moment you recall your full name, that man will come back to you.”
He didn’t look convinced, so Amelia concentrated on darning for a while to give him time to think things through. She couldn’t imagine how it would feel to lose several years of your life. It must be terrifying. She heard him sigh and settle back against his pillows.
“Shall I open the curtains for you, Marco? There is a rather nice view of the sea. I find it very restful.”
“I would like that, Mrs. Smith.”
She set aside her work and went over to the window to draw the curtains. Beyond the well-laid-out back garden was a white fence and then the flat grey expanse of the English Channel.
“It is quite peaceful out there today, but sometimes the waves climb as high as the cliffs and crash down over our fence.”
She turned back to the bed as the sunlight crept across her patient’s face, illuminating his unsmiling expression.
“I’ve missed the sun.”
“Since your return to England?”
“Just generally.” He glanced down at his uncovered wrist. “I don’t know if you noticed, but there are marks on my wrists and ankles as if I was once in chains.” He swallowed hard. “Is it possible that I was a prisoner condemned to the galleys?”
“I do not know, sir.” Amelia spoke as gently as she could. “It doesn’t matter anymore. You are a free man now.”
“It rather depends on who condemned me, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t believe the British had slave galleys.” She tried to sound reassuring. “I thought that was a French notion.”
“I believe the Romans thought of it first.”
“Well, naturally, but it would be just like the French to resurrect such a barbaric notion. Napoleon declared himself emperor, too. I believe he even crowned himself, as he didn’t consider anyone else good enough.”
“He did have a point. There was probably no one left to do it. The French aristocracy and religious orders had already been toppled by his predecessors.”
“Leaving him free to advance his way to power.” Amelia shivered. “And set a whole continent to war.”
Marco shrugged. “If it hadn’t been him, it would’ve been someone else. You might have noticed that men love to fight.” He paused. “Which branch of the military was your husband in?”
“He was a rifleman.”
“Which regiment?”
“The 60th.”
“Was he an officer?”
“No. He was a sergeant. I believe the officers were all European.”
“Your husband was an
American
?”
“Not quite. His father was English and his mother was American. He was considered useful because he could understand and translate for everyone.” She raised her eyebrows. “Why? Does it matter?”
“Not at all, it’s just that…” His gaze swept over her. “You appear so quintessentially English.”
“That you are surprised I would marry someone half-American?”
“I have nothing against that emerging nation, Mrs. Smith. In truth, I found all the American riflemen I met to be extraordinary shots.” He frowned. “I just can’t remember exactly where I met the fellows.”
“My husband’s regiment was stationed mainly in the Peninsular with the 95
th
.”
“And you followed your husband out there?”
“Yes.” Amelia looked down at the stocking she was darning. “It wasn’t the nicest place I’ve ever visited.”