Winning the War Hero's Heart

by Mary Nichols

  ‘I do not rejoice at anyone’s downfall, Miss Wayland,’ he said, smiling to soften the fierce look she was giving him. ‘I suppose I like to think I am a just and fair person and you are—’

  ‘A woman!’ she finished for him. ‘And not equipped to deal in a man’s world, is that what you were about to say?’

  ‘There is some truth in that.’

  ‘Then I shall have to prove you wrong, my lord.’

  ‘So you will retract?’

  ‘There is nothing to gainsay. What I wrote was the truth. And I shall continue to write the truth, however uncomfortable it makes people feel.’

  ‘Making someone feel uncomfortable is only the half of it,’ he said. ‘There is the consequence to consider.’

  ‘A change of heart, perhaps?’

  He did not think that would happen. ‘I meant an appearance in a court of law.’

  ‘I shall welcome the opportunity to have my say.’

  ‘I would not advise it. You might make matters a hundred times worse.’

  ‘Thank goodness I am not required to take your advice,’ she retorted.

  He smiled and changed tack. ‘I believe your father and mine were often at loggerheads, Miss Wayland. Do you have to continue the feud, for feud I believe it was, though I have no idea how it started? It would be a pity to perpetuate it.’

  ‘It was not a feud, it was simply that my father published the truth as he saw it and that did not please the Earl who saw, and still sees, his position as unassailable. But I think it should be challenged.’

  She had spirit, he would give her that, but did she really understand the implications of taking up swords against his father? ‘And you are determined to carry on where your father left off without even knowing why.’

  ‘I do know why. I have just told you: justice and fairness for those who cannot stand up for themselves.’

  ‘And who is to stand up for you?’

  ‘I can look after myself, my lord.’

  This was sheer bravado. He could see the doubt in her expressive greeny-brown eyes. Beautiful eyes, he decided, bright and honest-looking. He doubted she could lie convincingly. ‘Then, as I cannot budge you, I will take my leave.’ He bowed, turned on his heel and was gone.

  She watched him stop outside and look at the large sash window in which she had stuck the pages of the latest edition of the paper. Poor people could not afford newspapers. With tax duty of four pence they had to be sold at sixpence or sevenpence at least, which put them out of the reach of the ordinary working man and left her very little profit. She was convinced the tax was high in order to keep the lower orders from learning of things the government and those in authority did not want them to learn and so she had begun the habit of putting the pages in the window, so that it could be read aloud by those who could read to those who could not. His glance moved from that to one of Roger Blakestone’s posters advertising the rally on the common. As he walked back to his horse, she noticed he limped. She had read in the London paper that he had been wounded doing some deed of valour during the recent war with Napoleon and supposed that was the result.

  Helen turned back to work, but the prospect of being sued was worrying. If she were heavily fined or sent to prison, then the Warburton Record and the printing business would have to be shut down and that meant no work for Edgar, who was the sole support of his mother, or Tom Salter, who had a wife and three children, or Betty, her maid, who was an orphan and whose only relation was a distant cousin too poor to help her. She had brought this on them in her pig-headedness.

  Her father had spent six months in Norwich Castle for speaking out against the Earl enclosing common land which the villagers had worked since time immemorial. His crime had been called seditious libel. He had returned home after he served his sentence, a shadow of the man he had been. He was gaunt and thin, his hair had turned white and he walked with a stoop. It was a long time before he stood upright again and put on a little weight, but it did not seem to have taught him a lesson.

  The fire in his belly against injustice wherever he saw it, and particularly against the Earl of Warburton, had been as fierce as ever. She had watched him and worried about him, tried to tempt him with his favourite food, tried to persuade him to rest while she ran the paper, but to no avail. His pen was vitriolic. She had no doubt that if he had not died of a seizure, he would have been arraigned again. That was her legacy, not bricks and mortar, not printing presses, but his undying passion, a passion she shared.

  ‘You are not going to let him bully you, are you?’ Edgar said from his desk where he had been setting out advertisements, one for a lecture at the assembly rooms called ‘At Waterloo with Wellington’ being given by some bigwig from London, Mr West advertising his agricultural implements, and the miller his flour. Another was for an elixir of youth at sixpence a bottle. Goodness knew what it contained, but she did not doubt it tasted vile and could not live up to its name.

  ‘I don’t want to, but it’s not only me I have to consider. There’s you and Tom and Betty.’

  ‘We’ll manage, don’t you fret.’

  Tom came in from the back room in time to hear this. ‘Manage what?’

  ‘The Earl is threatening to sue me for defamation of character,’ she explained. ‘I am wondering if I ought to retract?’

  ‘But you said nothing that wasn’t true, did you?’

  ‘No, but the Viscount tells me that is no defence.’

  ‘He is only trying to frighten you. Call his bluff.’

  ‘You think I should?’

  ‘Yes, if you think you are in the right. Your father would have. We will stand by you.’

  ‘Thank you, both of you, but I fear I have made an enemy of the Viscount.’

  In any other circumstances and if he was not who he was, she could have liked the Viscount. He had none of the arrogance of his father, but he was his father’s son nevertheless. Was he right about a feud? Her father had had no love for the Earl, but she had always supposed it was for altruistic reasons and not personal. But supposing there was something personal in their enmity, what could it possibly be? A wrong never righted? But why? Who was to blame? She sighed and went back to her work; she was unlikely to find the answer to that now.

  Chapter Two

  In spite of the overcast skies and threat of yet more rain, the crowd began gathering on the common by the middle of Saturday morning. Men, women and even children were milling about trying to find the best places to hear the speaker, for whom a flat cart had been drawn up to act as a platform. They were noisy and for the most part good-humoured, treating it as a day out. Stalls had been set up selling food and drink and favours. These were made of red, white and blue ribbon, no doubt leftover from the celebrations of victory the year before.

  Helen, in her grey dress with a shawl over her head, mingled with the crowds. She had a small notebook and a pencil in her reticule, but did not bring it out for fear of being recognised. She wanted to report the proceedings anonymously. She was not the only one incognito, she discovered, when she found herself standing next to Viscount Cavenham. She hardly recognised him; he was dressed in yeoman’s clothes, fustian breeches and coat, rough boots, with a battered felt hat on his curls.

  ‘My lord,’ she said. ‘I never thought to see you here today.’

  ‘Shh,’ he said, looking about to see if she had been overheard. ‘Not so much of the “my lord” if you please.’

  ‘I could shout it,’ she threatened.

  ‘And have me lynched? I had not thought you so bloodthirsty, Miss Wayland.’

  ‘And not so much of the “Miss Wayland” either,’ she said.

  He laughed. ‘Then what am I to call you?’

  ‘You do not need to address me at all.’

  He ignored that. ‘I believe your name is Helen. A lovely name and most suitable for one as beautiful and fearless as you are.’

  ‘My lord, you go too far.’ It was said in a fierce whisper.

  ‘My name i
s Miles,’ he said. ‘Pray use it, then we shall be equal.’

  ‘We can never be equal,’ she said. ‘You, of all people, should know that.’

  ‘All are equal in God’s eyes.’

  ‘Then the Earl of Warburton must consider himself above God, for he would never accept that.’

  ‘My father belongs to the old school, Helen. I doubt he could be persuaded to change his ways now.’

  They were being jostled by the crowd and he put a hand under her arm to steady her. She resisted her first impulse to knock it away. It was firm and warm and rather comforting. ‘And you?’ she asked, turning to look up at him and found him looking down at her with an expression she could not interpret. It was full of wry humour, which she found unnerving. Her life until recently had been governed by her work with her father. The men she met were her father’s employees, friends and business acquaintances and she dealt with them accordingly. Meeting and dealing with this man was outside her experience. For one thing they had not been properly introduced, which was absurd since they had already encountered and spoken to each other twice before. But it was not the lack of an introduction that confused her; it was the way he looked at her and his self-possession, which somehow seemed to diminish hers. She took herself firmly in hand. If she was going to fight the Earl, she had better learn to stand up to his son.

  ‘I am my own man, Helen.’

  ‘But you are also your father’s son.’

  ‘Oh, undoubtedly I am that.’

  ‘So, why are you here?’

  ‘Curiosity. I want to know why men risk everything to take part in meetings like this which could have them arrested and can have no favourable outcome.’

  ‘Desperation, I should think.’

  ‘And you, I presume, are here to report it for your newspaper.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And can you do that without bias?’

  ‘I sincerely hope not. It would be excessively dull and achieve nothing.’

  It was not the answer he expected and made him chuckle. ‘How long have you been producing the Warburton Record?’

  ‘The Record was started by my father. He worked for a printing press in London, but when we moved to Warburton he set up on his own account as a printer; then he realised there was no way of disseminating local news except by pamphlets published by those with an axe to grind, so he started the Record. That was eight years ago.’

  ‘I meant how long have you been doing it?’

  ‘I used to love helping my father as a child and learned the business along with my growing up, especially after we moved here. When he died last year, he left the business to me.’ She did not add that it was all he had to leave. His many clashes with authority had left him almost penniless. No one was interested in buying the business as a going concern; the only offer she had ever had was for the machinery. She was not told who the prospective buyer was, but suspected it was someone who had no interest in running the Record, but rather wished to shut it down. Far from discouraging her, it had given her the impetus to keep going, especially as Tom and Edgar were both behind her.

  ‘Why did your father choose to leave London and come to Warburton?’ he asked. ‘Norfolk is hardly the hub of government.’

  ‘It was my mother’s birthplace; as she was mortally ill, she wanted to die here where she had spent her childhood and where her parents had lived and died.’

  ‘I am sorry for your loss,’ he said softly.

  ‘Thank you, my—’ She stopped and corrected herself. ‘Thank you, sir.’

  He bent over and whispered in her ear, so close his warm breath was having a strange effect on her limbs. ‘That’s better than “my lord”, but it’s still not the address I asked for.’

  She pulled herself together. ‘Oh, I cannot use that. It wouldn’t be proper.’

  ‘Is it also improper for me to address you as Helen?’

  ‘You know it is, but no doubt you will continue to do as you please.’

  ‘But I like the name. It rolls off the tongue so readily.’

  ‘Now you are bamming me.’

  ‘No. That would be ungentlemanly.’

  ‘Ah, but at the moment you are not dressed as a gentleman. Why the disguise?’

  ‘Do you think I would learn anything in my usual garb? I would be hounded off the common. At least this way I can be an ordinary soldier back from the war, which I am.’ He looked about him. ‘I see a goodly number of those here, including Roger Blakestone. He was in my regiment, a troublemaker even then.’

  ‘No one has said he is a troublemaker. He is out of work, as they all are. The farmers have stood the men off because the crops, if they ever grew at all, have been ruined by the weather; there’s no work for the soldiers, either. There ought to be something they could do that is not reliant on the weather.’

  ‘And how will listening to a man like Jason Hardacre help that?’ he queried. ‘He is for insurrection, which will surely make matters worse.’

  ‘Oh, I do not think the people will be swayed by him. They simply want to make their voices heard and have a day out that doesn’t cost them anything but a copper or two for a pie and a glass of cordial.’

  The behaviour of the crowd seemed to bear that out.

  Many of them were in family groups, having a picnic. ‘I never thought of sustenance,’ he said. ‘And I’m suddenly devilish hungry. Would you like something to eat, Miss…Oh, dear, it will have to be Helen, after all.’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘I intend to have something. There’s a woman over there selling hot pies. I think I will try one of those.’

  He left her and she thought that was the last she would see of him; suddenly she felt rather alone, even with the noisy crowds pushing and shoving and threatening to topple her over. She made her way to the edge of the throng where she could breathe freely. Five minutes later he was beside her again. ‘I thought I’d lost you,’ he said, handing her a paper packet in which reposed a succulent meat pie.

  ‘But I said no thank you,’ she said. ‘Do you never listen?’

  ‘Oh, I heard you, but I did not believe you. We have been standing about an age and I was ready to wager you would eat it if it were put before you.’

  She considered refusing, but the pie did smell rather savoury. ‘I hate to waste it,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’ She took a bite and realised she was indeed rather hungry.

  They stood together, enjoying their pies and not speaking, until a flourish of a bugle heralded the arrival of Jason Hardacre. A cheer went up as he mounted the cart with Mr Blakestone. But even before the latter opened his mouth to introduce the speaker, a troop of militia rode onto the common at a fast trot, right into the middle of the crowd, who attempted to scatter in terror, but they were so close-packed it was almost impossible to escape. There were shouts and screams as people were knocked over by the horses or hit by the blunt edge of a sword or the sharp point of a spur. Even if they had wanted to depart, which most of them did, they could not get away. In turning from one horseman, they were confronted by another.

  Miles was swift to act. He guided Helen into the shelter of an elder bush, then ran into the middle of the mêlée. Picking up two small children who were in danger of being trampled and tucking one under each arm, he pushed his way towards the lieutenant of the troop. ‘Call your men off,’ he commanded. ‘Someone will be killed. This was a peaceful gathering until you arrived.’

  ‘It is a seditious meeting,’ the lieutenant said. ‘In tended to encourage rebellion against the law of the land. I am empowered to put it down by whatever means I think fit.’

  ‘By whose order?’

  ‘His lordship, the Earl of Warburton, sitting as a magistrate.’

  ‘And I am ordering you to call off your men before someone is killed.’

  ‘And who are you to be giving orders?’

  He had obviously not been recognised in his lowly clothes. It made him smile. ‘My name is Captain Miles Cavenham of his Majesty’s
Dragoon Guards. As your superior officer, I order you to call off your men and ride slowly from the field.’ His manner of delivering the order left no doubt he was used to command, even if he did choose to dress like every other man there.

  The lieutenant obeyed reluctantly, but it was some time before order was restored and the people had the common to themselves again. Roger Blakestone and Jason Hardacre had disappeared as soon as the soldiers appeared. Miles returned the children to their weeping mother and set about assessing the casualties. He was joined by Helen.

  There were a few broken bones, some blood and many bruises, but mercifully no one had been killed. Helen put that down to the Viscount’s timely intervention. He had undoubtedly also saved her, for there had been a horseman bearing down on them when he pushed her into the shelter of the bush.

  ‘This is what happens when people hold unlawful meetings,’ he said.

  ‘This is what happens when men like the Earl order mounted soldiers against innocent women and children,’ she retorted.

  He knew she was right and did not respond. Instead he said, ‘We need medical assistance. Will the doctor come?’

  ‘I’ll fetch him.’

  ‘No, send a boy. He’ll be quicker. I need you to help me with the casualties. We must separate those who can go home and look to their own wounds from those who need medical attention. And we need pads and bandages. You do not faint at the sight of blood, I hope.’

  ‘No, I am not squeamish.’

  Looking about her for someone to send, she noticed a skinny fellow in rags watching them intently. It was difficult to tell how old he was—he had a childlike look about him, though he must have been in his thirties. He was grinning and dancing from one foot to the other, his eyes bright with excitement.

  ‘Poor idiot,’ Miles said, as he suddenly darted away. ‘I hope someone is looking after him.’

  Helen found a lad to send for the doctor and set about pulling up her skirt and undoing the ties of her petticoats and allowing them to drop to the ground. She picked them up and tore them into strips. They were busy binding some of the wounds when the doctor arrived and took over.