He gave a faint smile. “And I was wondering why I should be in such great demand that I was hailed from such a distance. I see now that I am expected to stand substitute for four men.”
“Something you are well able to do, sir, when you set your mind to it,” said Letty with a laugh. “Take off that downcast look and entertain us. We have seen little enough of you on our morning rides. Can it be that you feel we are not in your class as riders?”
“So you are not, madam,” he replied in quick teasing. “Why else do you think I have encouraged all my friends to flock around you? They have let me down this morning.”
“Shame on you! For that confession you shall suffer our company all the way back. What say you, gentlemen?”
Harry Edmunds and Lord Dovedale — now recovered from his fall — agreed, and further suggested he should provide the eggs for their breakfast. They rode in a group for a while, chatting lightheartedly as they were prone to do these days to cover the growing sense of frustration and worry over the condition of the horses, which were becoming pathetically thin and ill in such an unsuitable climate.
With careful nonchalance Victoria edged Renata nearer Hugo until they were riding side by side and slightly behind the others. He sensed what she was doing and made to quicken his pace.
“Hugo, just one moment, if you please,” she said quickly.
He remained coldly remote, not looking at her. “I am sorry. It is not possible.”
“Not possible! Is it not?” she cried in sudden hurt anger. “I shall make it possible.” Raising her voice so that it was clearly heard above the chatter of the others, she said, “I challenge you to outdistance me, Captain Esterly. We shall see if we are not in your class, as you so ungallantly suggested just now.”
Carried away by the passionate need to hurt him, move him in some way, see that he suffered as much as she, Victoria urged Renata forward on a mad gallop downhill before she fully considered her action. The hot morning air brushed her cheeks, making them burn, and the jacket of her blue habit felt too tight to contain the bursting within her breast as she heard hooves thundering behind her. In that short moment she had everything.
Monty flew past with long deep strides, and Hugo brought him around in superb style on that slope, so that she was forced to veer and rein in a hundred yards further on. Hugo was beside her as she halted and he was extremely angry — a mood that transferred itself to Monty, who fidgeted and danced sideways, snorting through his nostrils as his rider breathed heavily with more than exertion.
“That trick was not worthy of you, Victoria,” he snapped.
She was also breathless with more than exertion. “You have not been behaving in a very worthy manner yourself,” she flung back at him. “How do you think it looks when you so pointedly ignore me? Every other officer at Devna offers me warm friendship.”
His eyes flashed. “Then you do not need mine.”
“I do not need such a complete reversal of manner that not only the officers but the men are beginning to look strangely at me when you pass by like a stiff-faced statue.”
“You should never have come on this campaign.”
“But I am here and intend to remain. Do you mean to continue this ridiculous pretense that we are even less than acquaintances?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It is a matter of honor. Charles doubts mine where you are concerned.”
“So you told me at the ball, but you are being quite nonsensical about it. How can there be anything dishonorable about you having a conversation with me in the presence of others? Does he question the honor of every gentleman who speaks to me?” She was angry and flung out a hand to point at the distant figures they had left. “Does he doubt Lord Dovedale and Mr. Edmunds because they ride with me?”
“I suggest you ask him.”
She looked at him in despair. He was not only acting like a stranger — he was one. To what distant place had he retreated since the night of the ball? Had Charity Verewood besieged him so that he had abandoned all he had previously held dear? No, it was impossible to believe that…yet she had lost him as surely as his manner suggested. He was not acting a charade these days; there was more than honor behind his hostility.
Through stiff lips she asked, “Are you afraid of Charles? Is it really necessary for you to walk away whenever I approach, or dig in your spurs if I trot past?”
“I would not do it if it were not.” He pulled at the reins to steady his horse. “I suggest we rejoin the others.”
“And I suggest you are a coward,” she cried through her hurt. She was unprepared for his reaction.
“By God, not you also? Has your husband been instructing you on my character?” He was blazingly angry, and she thought he had never stirred her more than at this moment on a foreign hillside with the sun glinting through his windblown hair as he sat the tall restless stallion.
“We do not discuss you — we do not discuss anything. Charles seems always too busy these days.”
“Then perhaps you should concentrate more on your husband and less on trying to captivate every officer in sight,” he suggested tightly as he swung his horse around. “At the risk of appearing even more ungallant I am about to return to our friends — whether you accompany me or not.”
*
Six days later, all other problems were set aside when a vicious form of cholera quickly ran through the French camp and struck the British cavalry overnight. By morning, twenty-five men were dead, including Major Packer, second-in-command of the Hussars. Victoria was shocked and frightened by her first encounter with sudden death — Major Packer had dined with them the previous evening, laughing and entertaining them with stories of his one attempt at training a string of race horses. She could not believe he would not laugh again.
Too upset to eat breakfast or go riding, she remained in her tent all day, sweltering in a temperature of 109°, haunted by Major Packer’s face and staring at the spot in which he had sat less than twelve hours ago. The air was oppressive. Charles, as his new second-in-command, was in conference with Colonel Rayne, and Letty had gone with Jack and several Lancer officers to the village of Schumla on a day’s excursion to see if there were better goods there than in Devna.
A headache had developed by the time Charles returned, but he had even more shocking news for her. In Varna the epidemic was out of control, and those encamped there had lost as many as four hundred in one night. In their own camp there had been more deaths during the day, the most tragic being one of the troopers’ wives, who had been much loved by the men for her kind and cheerful nature.
Charles brooded over dinner, and Victoria retired early, trying to cool her forehead with cologne that was warm in the bottle and virtually useless. Her dreams were nightmares in which she saw herself running from a great green monster with outstretched hands that kept laughing with increasing hollowness in Major Packer’s voice.
Zarina awoke her in the morning with the usual cup of tea, but Victoria quickly noticed an air of nervousness about the elephant girl as she glanced around for any sign of the major arriving.
“Missus,” she whispered conspiratorially, “Stokes said I was to tell you this private. The captain got took with the cholera two hours ago and won’t go to his bed. Stokes says you’re the only one can talk some sense into him before it’s too late. Please come, Missus, they’re gone in a matter of four hours, with no one to mourn them.”
Chapter Nine
“You’re doing yourself no good, sir,” Stokes insisted. “Walking up and down like that only aggravates the pains — take my word for it. Captain, it’s a fact,” he pleaded. “I shan’t tell you again.”
“Good. Your silence will bring one less thing to plague me,” grunted Hugo. He continued to drag himself along the few feet of space within his tent, holding onto the center pole as he passed, while a cramping pain doubled him up once more.
He had thought the sea journey produced the most misery he had eve
r felt, but this was far worse. Apart from the vomiting that left him shaking and cold, there were tearing claws at his stomach that could not be borne silently, however hard he tried. At the onset of the attack in the early hours, life had not run out of him in the most appalling way, but now that had ceased the cramps seemed worse.
He took out his pocket watch. Two hours and a quarter since that first fearful knowledge. Some men died in that time. Determinedly he put one foot in front of the other and made for the tent flap, before turning to pace back the other way. To lie down would be fatal; while he was on his feet he could not succumb. A man could not die of cholera if he was standing up. If he kept moving for a quarter of an hour, he could do so for the next. On no account would he take to his bed.
He reached the bed as another cramp brought cold sweat and an onrush of fear in its wake. As he was hanging over it, fighting to keep his breath even, there was a rustle behind him.
“Thank the Lord you’ve come, ma’am,” said Stokes’s voice. “Please get him to go to bed. All that walking up and down is weakening him.”
“I shall do what I can, Stokes,” said Victoria’s hushed voice. “Thank you for letting me know.”
“Well, ma’am, I thought as how your being…friends…with the captain… I mean…”
“It is good of you to show such concern over Captain Esterly. He has a loyal man in you.”
The spasm over, Hugo turned in exhausted anger. She was standing just inside his tent, dressed in a gown of some yellow material that hung in full folds. Her long dark curls were caught back with a ribbon, and her face was pale. He had never seen her with her hair down, and the sight made him angrier.
“I shall have your hide for this, Stokes. Escort Mrs. Stanford back to her tent at once.”
“No, Stokes,” she said quietly. “Just wait outside for a few minutes.”
Stokes gave Hugo a tragic look. “I’m sorry, sir. I’ve always done what you said before, but there’s times I don’t hear you too well, and this is one of them.” He nodded his head at Victoria. “Call if you want anything, ma’am.”
“Stokes!” Hugo roared through a throat made dry and husky through constant retching. Turning to Victoria, he said, “I shall be obliged if you will leave immediately.”
“No, Hugo.”
“I cannot believe Charles sent you.”
“He does not know I have come.”
“Then I insist you leave.”
She came forward several paces, paler than ever. “You are extremely ill. All other considerations must be forgotten at such a time.”
He was at the end of his tether. “Keeping alive is my only consideration. That is the only thing in which I have any interest. I do not want advice, assistance…or anything else from you. I thought I made my views clear enough last week.”
She stood her ground, the light of determination still in her eyes despite a growing hurt. “Very clear — but I am more concerned with compassion than honor. I have no intention of leaving until I have persuaded you to see sense. Since you cannot leave, and I will not, I think you must give in to the inevitable.”
“Are you not content with what you have already done? Is it your wish to destroy everything around me?” An attack of pain in his lower abdomen grew so severe he was forced to bend forward in an attempt to relieve it, and he felt her arm around him for support.
“I would not be here if I wished to hurt you,” she said on a breath. “Please listen to advice and lie on your bed.”
The familiar lemon-and-sweet-hay perfume swept over him, with luring promises of past pleasures reborn. In the midst of the uncontrollable shaking which followed each spasm he found time to wonder rather wildly why he should have to face this extra torment when he already had enough to combat. Though he was drained, exhausted and near capitulation, her next words brought back his fighting spirit.
“Hugo, stop this nonsense and let Stokes make you comfortable or I shall have risked Charles’s anger for nothing.”
He pulled away and went across to the tent flap, which provided a convenient hold to steady himself. “You have risked it for nothing. I did not ask you to come. I do not want you here. It is abundantly clear that you know nothing about cholera. Its deadlines depend as much on fear as virulence. A strong man can believe himself into his grave from the moment he first knows he is a victim.” The tent began to blur and he blinked to clear the sweat that was running down his face.
Behind Victoria his bed beckoned. A great longing to double up on the blankets and shut out the world began to insinuate itself into his brain in a louder voice than his own, which suddenly sounded far away in his ears. “The only way to fight this is to stay on one’s feet and know that recovery is certain. That is the only way, Victoria,” he finished painfully.
The yellow dress had grown smudgy now, and the grass inside the canvas pyramid was undulating in a way that revived the nausea inside him. Dear God, surely he was not about to start retching again? In a great burst of desperation, he set himself walking, brushing past Victoria as he went. She had broken his regular pacing and the symptoms were returning. A hand caught his arm and she was beside him, looking up with eyes that appeared wet, but it might have been his own blurred vision giving that illusion.
“Recovery will be certain if you let me help you.” She walked beside him, smelling sweet and clean after the wretchedness of the past two hours. “Please give yourself some ease by lying down.”
“I must keep walking.” He was not sure if he had spoken aloud or not.
“If I only knew the right thing to do.” Her voice held a note of despair. “If I could only be sure this was the best way to fight it.” Suddenly, she was before him, taking his face between her hands. The wetness in her eyes was now overflowing. “Tell me the truth, Hugo. Tell me what I must do. I am so frightened — more frightened than I have ever been in my life.” All that short life was there in her eyes. “If I lose you, I shall have nothing — you know that.”
He caught at the center pole as he felt the tent start to spin. He tried hard to focus on the face that haunted his life; all he could see was his brother standing in the book-lined library in Brunswick Square. Are you an adolescent boy that you cannot master the desires of the flesh? She will see you crack and fall apart before her. I challenge you to see this campaign through to its end.
He dragged up words from deep within himself. “I have only one aim in life — to survive this campaign to its end. I shall not do it unless you leave me to recover and go back where you belong.” With some pale savagery he added, “You cannot lose what you have never had.”
The vision of Charles vanished in time for him to see the effect of his words, but she went in a swirl of skirts while he stood holding the pole. He was viciously angry now. The feeling of sickness vanished and the returning vision of Charles put new strength in his feet. Several minutes later, Stokes entered with a brawny trooper and the men took Hugo’s arms to keep him walking up and down. A look at his pocket watch showed that twenty minutes had passed since he last looked. Twenty minutes more of his life. It was not finished yet!
*
After luncheon, Victoria put on a straw bonnet and walked the short distance to Letty’s tent, knowing she would find her friend alone while Jack was out on patrol. The unbearable heat had taken toll of the brown-haired girl, who was resting on her bed with a damp cloth over her eyes. She uncovered them and managed a smile when her visitor entered.
“Hello, Victoria. Mrs. Stokes has told you the news, of course? Jack went to Hugo’s tent as soon as we received your message this morning, and I called again less than half an hour ago. You would not believe the improvement in him!” She paused fractionally. “I believe he is over the crisis, truly I do. There is every chance that he will survive, Victoria.”
“Thank you, Letty.” It was the first time since sailing that the two women had alluded to any interest Victoria might have in the young captain. Even now, it was quickly pushed away.
“The heat, plus anxiety for Hugo, has given me a headache. Jack is gone on patrol, so I hope to sleep for a while.” Letty raised herself on the pillow. “Are you quite well yourself? Should you be about in this terrible heat?”
“I have been thinking and am come to enlist your help,” said Victoria, sinking onto the only chair. “I have been told that many men believe themselves into their graves because cholera frightens them into succumbing from the moment they know it is on them. They see their fellows dying all around them — sometimes within a matter of an hour or so — and give up all hope immediately.”
“Are you surprised, Victoria? Jack said six hundred died in one night at Varna. It has spread to the fleet and the Turkish troops that have marched in to join the Anglo-French force. It is said that our poor Guards are reduced to half their number. Half their number, mark you, and they have not yet been in battle.”
Victoria was appalled. “It cannot be true, Letty.”
The girl nodded. “Jack had it on good authority from a captain who rode up from Varna yesterday. It seems our Guards were encamped in one of the unhealthiest spots in the Balkans. The Turkish troops will not go near it but, since we did not ask its fitness, they did not think to tell us what they knew. Our men are being moved as soon as possible.”
“Charles tells me there is a rumor afoot that we are to move also,” Victoria confided, “but we hear so many conflicting stories I do not believe any of them until they happen. It will not affect my plan.”
Letty looked at her curiously. “Are you certain you are well enough to discuss plans, Victoria? You look as if there is a fever upon you.”
“If there is, it is a fever of impatience,” she said shortly. “I wish you will listen to what I have to propose.”
Letty considered her for a few seconds, then said quietly, “Go on.”
“We are the only two ladies here at Devna, and I have come to believe that we should earn our places with the regiment.”
Letty became suspicious. “How?”
Scarlet Shadows Page 28
