“Sí. My husband.” She closed her eyes, and her lip quivered. After a moment she took a deep breath and met Will’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said.
He shook his head. “No, ma’am, I’m sorry.”
They stared at each other for a long moment, a disobedient wife and an insubordinate sergeant.
“We’ll say no more about it, ma’am,” he said gently. Dan and Juana exchanged glances and nodded.
“Thank you. Only—I’ll speak to your captain. You shouldn’t be flogged for this.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that, ma’am,” Will said.
“My husband can be most insistent.”
Will grinned. “The more he insists, the less heed Captain Matheson will pay him. He’s a stubborn man.” He winked at Juana. “Not always a bad thing to be.” His amusement didn’t last, for he remembered Captain Arrington’s upraised whip hand. “Will he beat you, ma’am?”
“No! Of course not.” She hesitated, and her expression grew uncertain. “I don’t think so. He never has before.”
“You’ve angered him enough on our account already. Don’t speak up for us. Ten to one our captain won’t listen to him. And if he does, better us flogged than you beaten.”
“No. It isn’t. Don’t act the chivalrous idiot over me.”
Chivalrous idiot, was he? Will smiled at her. “But if I don’t, then when will I get the chance to play the knight? I don’t meet fair ladies every day.”
***
For the second time in five minutes, Anna Arrington had to choke back tears. Poor Juana had another birth pang at that moment, giving her an excuse to look away from the terrible compassion in Sergeant Atkins’ amber-brown eyes. He’d attempted to make a joke of it, but she wasn’t fooled.
She didn’t think Sebastian would beat her. Only once had he ever struck her, when presented with what he believed was proof of her faithlessness and betrayal. Until that dreadful night, Anna had believed herself and Sebastian deeply in love. Swept off her feet by a dignified, grave young cavalry officer, so different from the gentlemen who had courted her during her London Seasons, she had married in haste but also in good faith. She had looked forward to the new adventures awaiting her as an officer’s lady, and she had intended to be his devoted helpmeet. But then one dreadful night she had discovered she had not known her new husband at all.
Two years later, Sebastian still thought her guilty—she had no proof of her innocence, and no amount of chaste, modest behavior would convince him he had misjudged her. But their unhappiness had settled into cold civility rather than heated quarrels. Sebastian had his ways of insulting her, but she had learned to numb her pain and ignore his continual jabs as best she could.
Yet Anna had broken their uneasy truce a fortnight ago, and over Beatriz, of all things. The newly orphaned girl had been left without any family or friends, and Anna had hired her out of pity. It didn’t matter that Beatriz lacked the skills of a lady’s maid. She would learn them soon enough.
But Sebastian hadn’t approved of her hiring a new servant and adding to their expenses without consulting him. He’d ordered her to dismiss Beatriz, saying the girl was a waste of money. Anna had refused and pointed out a fact she had scrupulously avoided mentioning from the beginning of their courtship until that day: every penny he possessed came from the vast fortune her father had left her.
Now their marriage was an open war. Anna knew that if she hadn’t hired Beatriz, something else would’ve set it off soon enough. She’d had enough of letting Sebastian control her, and she loathed the nervous, mousy person she was becoming almost as much as she had grown to despise her husband. If no amount of obedient, decorous behavior would placate him, why continue the pretense?
But for now there was a baby to deliver, and Juana needed better help than she and the two sergeants could offer.
“Beatriz,” she said, “you must take the donkey and ride forward for Señora Gordon and María.”
Beatriz shrank back, wide-eyed. “Go alone? Oh, no, señora.”
Anna sighed. The girl was still so young, barely sixteen, and frightened of her strange new life with a foreign army. “You must, Beatriz. Imagine if it were you or I. Would you not want the best help that could be had? They cannot be far ahead. On the donkey you can go quickly and be safe.”
Beatriz swallowed and nodded. “Sí, señora. I will do it.” She untied the donkey and rode away.
“Gracias,” Juana called after her.
In awkward silence they awaited the next labor pain. Anna searched for something to say that couldn’t lead back to the scene Sebastian had created.
Sergeant Atkins, bless him, stepped into the breach. “You’re from Scotland, aren’t you, ma’am?” he asked, sounding for all the world like a new acquaintance at a dinner or a ball.
She blinked. Not many people noticed her subtle accent so quickly. “You’ve a good ear.”
He shrugged. “You speak rather like our captain, and he’s from near Inverness.”
She relaxed. Talking of her childhood was safe. “I’m only half-Scottish. My father was from Gloucestershire, and my brother lives there still. But Father died when I was little, so I was sent to my aunt and uncle in the Highlands. I pay my brother a visit every year—or, I did before I came here—but Dunmalcolm Castle is home.”
“You grew up in a castle.” Sergeant Atkins drew back.
Sergeant Reynolds and Juana also stared at her in awe. Anna didn’t want them looking at her like that.
“It’s not such a very big castle,” she said. “Really, it’s smaller than my brother’s house. Only it’s quite old, and dreadfully drafty in the winter, and was once fortified…” She blushed as she realized how foolish she must sound. “So it’s a castle,” she finished lamely.
Sergeant Atkins raised one eyebrow. “Really, ma’am?” he said. “Next will you tell us your uncle isn’t such a very big duke?”
She grinned, liking him very much indeed. “Nothing of the sort. But he is very short for an earl.”
They laughed together, ease restored.
From then on Juana’s birth pains came regularly. She was too spent to talk, and Sergeant Reynolds resumed his pacing. Anna and Sergeant Atkins attended to Juana, occasionally conversing when her situation allowed it.
“And where do you come from?” she asked as she raised to her lips the canteen he offered her. The afternoon was growing even hotter, and she took several gulps of the water despite its brackish warmth.
“Shropshire.” His eyes grew distant.
“And you grew up on a farm and helped with the lambing?” She splashed a little water onto her handkerchief and laid it across Juana’s brow. It couldn’t be very cooling, but surely it was better than nothing.
“Not exactly,” he said. “The farm was my brother-in-law’s, and I was an apprentice of sorts. My father has an inn, but it’s to go to my brother Tim, so my family meant to set me up as a farmer.”
His people sounded too prosperous for him to have been driven to enlist out of poverty. “Then why are you here? If it’s not too impertinent of me to ask.”
He brushed an unruly lock of chestnut hair out of his eyes. “Not at all, ma’am. It’s a simple story. The recruiters came to town when I was sixteen and restless.”
“And now here you are.”
“Yes. After a few adventures along the way.”
That must be an understatement. At some point before she had arrived, he’d shed his regiment’s distinctive green jacket and the black stock he ought to have worn at his throat. With him in his rolled-up shirtsleeves, she could see two scars, one on his left forearm and a second at his collarbone. Both were long, thin lines of the type made by a saber. She wondered how many more marks of battle were hidden from her view.
Soon Juana’s labor grew more strenuous, and she screamed through each pain. Terrified, Anna wondered what was taking Beatriz so long. Helen and María shouldn’t have been that far ahead. If they didn’t arrive soon, she and Sergea
nt Atkins would have to deliver this baby themselves. She tried to remember what the midwife had done for Helen when Charlie was born, but her mind was a blank.
During her next pain, Juana looked at them, her eyes wild. “I think it’s coming,” she said in Spanish. English had deserted her.
“What now?” Sergeant Atkins asked.
“I wish I knew! My cousin had a birthing chair. Maybe she should squat.”
“Hands and knees.” They stared at Sergeant Reynolds in surprise. “I saw it done so, once before.”
Sergeant Atkins looked at her questioningly, and she shrugged assent. Between the pains the three of them helped Juana shift into the new position. Sergeant Reynolds searched through a bundle of gear, finding a small cache of clean linen cloths, while Anna helped Sergeant Atkins ease Juana’s skirts out of the way. If anyone had told her that morning she’d be doing such a service for a woman she’d never met before, she’d have thought them mad. Yet one did what one must. Such was life following the drum.
“It’s coming, right enough,” Sergeant Atkins said. “See the head?”
She cast aside the remnants of her modesty and looked. “Soon, Juana,” she said. “And your baby will not be bald.”
Juana screamed, and the head began to emerge. Anna’s heart climbed to her throat, and Sergeant Atkins’s calm amazed her as he caught the wet, blue-tinged head in his big, dexterous hands. But then she noticed the tightness of his jaw and the way the muscles by his ear twitched. He was as frightened as she was—he simply hid it better.
After another few pushes, the baby slid into his hands. For a long, breathless moment they waited until the silence was broken by a sputtering cry.
Sergeant Atkins gaped at the squirming baby in his hands and laughed aloud. “We did it.”
Anna too laughed in relief. “We did.”
“Boy or girl?” Juana asked between panting breaths.
“A girl,” Sergeant Atkins said.
“A beautiful girl,” Anna added, and it was true. Angry red face and misshapen head notwithstanding, the baby was a beauty. The head would settle back to normal soon enough—Anna’s cousin’s son had looked worse, but had turned into a fine handsome child in due course.
“A girl,” Sergeant Reynolds repeated. “I have a daughter.”
“Gracias a Dios,” Juana said. She slumped down onto the blanket, and Sergeant Reynolds knelt beside her, cradling her head on his lap.
What had the midwife done after Charlie was born? “Shouldn’t we cut the cord?” Anna asked.
Sergeant Atkins frowned. “I think so.”
“I believe you’re supposed to tie it off first,” she added.
“Yes. That sounds right. Here, ma’am, you hold her.”
Without ceremony he wrapped the squirming creature in a strip of linen and passed it into her arms. She trembled lest she drop it. The little thing, so strong and vigorous for so new a life, wailed fitfully and stared up at her through dark, unfocused eyes. Never would she hold a child of her own like this, for surely if she were capable of conceiving she would have done so by now. Usually she thought it best that a marriage as unhappy as hers bear no fruit, but she couldn’t hold a baby without pangs of regret. Silent tears trickled down her face.
Through blurred eyes she watched Sergeant Atkins rinse his hands with water from his canteen and dig through his equipment for a bit of string. He raised an eyebrow at his friend. “Give me your sword, Dan.”
Sergeant Reynolds grinned, unsheathed his rifle’s sword-bayonet and passed it to his friend.
When Sergeant Atkins came to cut the cord he saw that Anna wept. “It’s all right, ma’am,” he said. “It’s over now.”
She shook her head and tried not to cry harder. He didn’t understand—how could he?—and she would not explain it.
His face grew troubled, his golden brown eyes boundlessly compassionate. With his free hand he stroked her cheek, brushing away her tears with his callused fingers. She leaned into his touch, accepting its comfort.
The touch lasted only a second or two before they both jerked apart.
“I—I’m sorry, ma’am.”
She shook her head. “Think nothing of it.” That was the only thing to do—pretend it hadn’t happened.
He gave her a startled stare and bent to his work, inspecting the cord. “I’ve used these bayonets to cut firewood,” he said, “and they make fine spits for roasting a rabbit, but I never thought I’d use it for this.”
He spoke hurriedly, and Anna knew he was covering his share of their confusion and embarrassment. Resolutely she focused her attention on the baby. The child had calmed and was blinking at the world in bewilderment. Once the cord was cut, Anna must find a way to wash her and give her to her mother so she could nurse. Surely there was some water left in one of the canteens.
“There.” His task done, Sergeant Atkins sat back.
Anna heard a rustling at the edge of the grove, and at last Beatriz rode in, followed by Helen and her servant, María, on their own donkeys.
“I see I’m too late,” Helen said. “But it looks as though you managed. Has the afterbirth come yet?”
Anna shook her head. At that, Helen and María nudged her and Sergeant Atkins aside and took charge of the mother and baby.
“I could hardly credit it when Beatriz found us,” Helen said as she inspected the infant. “Our Anna, delivering a baby!”
“Sergeant Atkins really did it,” she said.
He shook his head. “I couldn’t have done it without your help, ma’am.”
She doubted it. She only hoped she hadn’t done more harm than good by bringing Sebastian’s wrath down upon them.
“Did she say your Christian name was Anna, señora?” Juana asked.
“Yes.”
“Then we shall call this one Anna—Anita.” She looked to Sergeant Reynolds for confirmation, and he nodded.
Anna smiled her appreciation of the honor, though it amused her to think how appalled Sebastian would be if he ever found out.
She and Sergeant Atkins were superfluous as Helen and María worked to deliver the afterbirth and wash and swaddle the baby. They stood a little apart from the others, maintaining a careful, correct distance between them. He shrugged his jacket back on but left it unbuttoned.
“All’s well that ends well,” he said.
“Yes, she’s a beautiful baby.”
The corner of his mouth quirked up. “I think she’ll resemble Juana more than Dan, which is a blessing.”
Before she could reply, she heard a horse entering the grove. Oh, no. Not Sebastian again.
But this was a smaller, dark-haired man on a dappled gray. Cousin Alec. Shouldn’t he be on patrol with Sebastian?
“Why, darling!” Helen said. “Were you looking for me?”
He shook his head and dismounted. “Not exactly,” he said. “I came to get all of you—Anna especially. Our billet is ready, and—well, I think you should get there as soon as you possibly can. It’s Sebastian, and…”
Anna’s heart thudded, and she stepped forward—away from Sergeant Atkins and his solid, protective presence. “He’s injured?” She was surprised how steady her voice sounded. Some part of her hoped that Alec was going to say they had clashed with a French patrol and Sebastian was dead, though she despised herself for wanting to buy her freedom at the price of her husband’s life.
Alec shook his head, coming forward to take her by the elbow. “No, lass, it’s nothing like that,” he said in a low voice. “It was the most routine and dull patrol that ever was. But all Sebastian did was complain about this—” with a sweeping glance he indicated the grove, the sergeants, and the new mother and baby, “—and from the threats he made, it would be well for them, in particular, if you didn’t linger here.”
She sighed. “Very well.”
“I ordered him to stay behind for now, but he was grumbling that I wasn’t the commanding officer of his marriage, and there’s no one to keep him from riding after
us. I don’t like this, but I don’t want a quarrel between regiments.”
“I see. Well, then we’ll have to be quick.” She stepped away and brushed at her dusty skirts.
“Anna.” Alec was weary and covered in dust, and his dark blue eyes looked troubled.
“Yes?”
“We won’t let him hurt you.”
“Oh, he won’t hurt me.” If her defiance over Beatriz hadn’t pushed him to strike her, surely the small act of helping a woman in labor would not either. “But I won’t see them suffer for it.”
With a determined toss of her head, she turned to Sergeant Atkins, who she suspected had overheard almost everything. “We must go,” she said, “but I want Juana to have my donkey for the evening. She shouldn’t have to walk so far yet, and Helen or I can ride double with Alec. You may send it to the Sixteenth’s officers’ billet in the morning, though it might be best if you or Sergeant Reynolds didn’t come yourself.”
He frowned. “Don’t worry about us, ma’am.”
“I cannot help it.”
“There’s no need. And thank you for the donkey. It’s most kind of you—and I will return her myself tomorrow. I won’t trouble you, but—”
He bit back whatever he was about to say, and she shook her head in fierce negation. “Don’t worry about me, Sergeant.”
“I can’t help it.” His voice was barely more than a whisper.
Their eyes met and held for a long moment. Anna would never see him again, would never know how Juana and the baby named after her fared, but so it must be. She suffered enough herself over Sebastian and their misbegotten marriage, and she would not allow that misery to spread any further. “Goodbye, Sergeant,” she said.
Without waiting for a reply, she turned and hurried away.
Chapter Two
Once Mrs. Arrington and her family and servants had left, Will and Dan packed their gear and bundled Juana and the baby onto the donkey. Will hardly spoke to the others as they slowly made their way to their regiment’s camp. His friends were lost in admiration of their newborn daughter, as well they should be. For his part, Will couldn’t stop worrying over Mrs. Arrington. Trapped in marriage to that brute—and Will didn’t trust her cousin’s assurances that they wouldn’t let her husband hurt her. If they were so determined to protect her, they wouldn’t be hurrying her back to Captain Arrington with him in a vicious temper and looking for someone to flog for it.
The Sergeant's Lady Page 2
