What a Lady Most Desires

by Lecia Cornwall

  It had been three days since the duchess’s ball. Barely hours after they’d marched out, the wounded had begun coming back to Brussels.

  Eleanor had heard from Fairlie, a brief note telling her he was safe, and the battle was over. It had been a near thing, with fearful losses, but Napoleon had been defeated, and the wars were finished for good.

  Not that there was time to celebrate.

  Once she knew her husband was safe, and her confidence was restored, Eleanor had tried to send Delphine home, saying that a young, unmarried lady should not see the ugly aftermath of battle, the wounds, the suffering, the bitterness of having survived the battle only to die anyway.

  Delphine had insisted on staying, since helpers were few, and everyone was stretched to their limits. She fetched water and bound wounds, and when they did indeed run out of bandages, she tore up her own petticoats. She held the hands of dying men, spooned broth into soldiers too exhausted or injured to feed themselves, and she felt needed and alive. She wasn’t the Earl of Ainsley’s pampered daughter here, a debutante to be courted and flattered. Money and title made no difference to a man in need. She was ordinary and useful, and the gratitude in a wounded man’s eyes for a simple sip of water was worth far more to her than a hundred compliments on her beauty.

  She’d chosen to remain in Brussels for a selfish reason as well. She scanned the face of every new arrival, hoping to see Stephen Ives, even as she prayed she wouldn’t, that he’d survived, walked off the field, and was whole and healthy somewhere. She’d heard the Royal Dragoons had charged the French guns and had been cut down almost to a man. Almost. That fragment of hope remained alight, kept her moving, helping others as she hoped someone was helping Stephen if he should need it now. She asked anyone who might know, her voice hoarse from saying his name, begging for news of him.

  “So many fell,” Lieutenant Alan Sawyer told her, shaking his head, his eyes haunted, when she asked after Major Lord Ives. She’d known Alan in London, had danced with him at countless balls, flirted and laughed. He was the heir to a fortune, eagerly courted by starry-eyed girls. Would they want him now he’d lost his leg to a musket ball?

  There were other men she knew here as well, utterly changed from the carefree lads they’d been just days ago. She kept a smile on her face to mask her sadness, offered comfort, mopped fevered brows, and wrote letters for them.

  “Dilly!” Eleanor called to her, and Delphine looked up. Her sister was on the ragged edge of exhaustion. “There’s another cart pulling up outside. Go out and tell them we have no more room. They’ll have to find somewhere else to take them.” Her sister turned away when a surgeon yelled for assistance.

  Delphine stepped outside into the sunshine for the first time in two days. She was surprised to find it was a perfect summer morning, the kind that should be reserved for weddings and garden parties and picnics. Roses bloomed, bees buzzed, and birds sang as if there had never been a battle. Only the muddy, blood-streaked cart parked in front of the house gave evidence to the contrary.

  “We have no more room,” she said, shading her eyes to look up at the driver.

  “There’s no place else to take ’em,” he said wearily, climbing down, moving past her to the back of the cart. “Every inch of Brussels is full, and Waterloo village too. They’re sending the ones who can make the trip to Antwerp now. These blighters can’t.” He began to help another soldier unload the first man, and Delphine hurried to his side.

  “Now wait a moment, you can’t leave them here. We haven’t got any bandages left, or any—”

  She caught a glimpse of blond hair matted with blood and dirt, and saw the yellow facings on his tunic. His face was bruised and filthy, and he was almost unrecognizable, but she knew him.

  “Stephen!” She felt all the air rushing out of her lungs with that single word. She touched his cheek, clambered up into the cart, ran her hands over his limbs, trying to see where he was hurt. His left arm hung at an impossible angle, and she felt terror at the amount of blood on his tunic, and his stillness. She put her fingers against his neck the way she’d seen Eleanor do. The faint beat of his heart made her dizzy with relief.

  “Bring him,” she ordered, and watched as they lifted his limp body off the cart. She raced ahead and held the door for them, her eyes never leaving his face. There wasn’t an inch of space to lay him down. “Upstairs,” she said, pointing.

  They had to step over the men laid out in the hallways. She threw open the door of her own room. Eleanor insisted that their bedrooms remained private for their personal use, a small sanctuary amid the overwhelming chaos, but Delphine had not spent more than mere moments in her room in three days. Better he should have it now.

  “There,” she said, pointing to her bed. They set him down carefully, and he emitted a faint groan.

  “There’s two others, if they’re still alive,” the driver said, leaving to get them.

  Delphine ignored them and bent over him. He was pale under the blood and dirt. “Stephen?” she whispered. “You’re safe now.”

  She felt tears sting her eyes, and her throat thickened. She brushed at a gore-stiffened lock of his hair, trying to push it out of his eyes, but it was stuck, and wouldn’t go. She turned to look at the pitcher on the washstand. She needed water, a cloth, and—

  “Dilly, you can’t let them—” Delphine turned as her sister entered to scold her. The tears broke free, poured down her cheeks.

  “It’s Stephen Ives, Ellie, he’s alive.”

  Her sister crossed the room, her face grim, and checked his pulse. “Just barely,” she murmured. She turned to the maid behind her. “Fetch the surgeon at once.”

  “Water . . .” he murmured, his voice a thread of sound.

  Delphine reached for the carafe beside her bed and filled a glass. She put her arm behind his head and held it to his lips. He sucked at it thirstily. “Julia,” he sighed.

  Delphine frowned. Julia? Who was Julia? Delphine moved carefully, setting his head back on the pillow. “It’s me, Delphine St. James,” she told him.

  His brow furrowed as if that made no sense at all, and he lost consciousness again.

  Delphine’s heart climbed into her throat, and she swallowed, swiping at her tears. She poured water into a bowl and carried it to the bed. Carefully, she began to wash his face.

  Stephen heard the rustle of linen sheets, or perhaps it was a woman’s dress. He could smell wildflowers, and mint too, but it was night, and impossible to see anything. He had no idea where he was. Still in Vienna? Brussels? London? Then he remembered the battle. He listened, but the guns had ceased. It was over, then, and he had no idea who’d won. The sound of movement came again.

  “Who’s there?” His voice came out as a weakling’s whisper.

  The swish of clothing grew instantly louder, closer, and he felt a cool touch on his brow.

  “Stephen?” He smelled perfume, faint and familiar. “He’s awake,” she said more loudly. He turned his head toward the voice, and instantly wished he hadn’t. Fireworks exploded in his brain, and he clenched his fists, willing the searing agony away. That brought more pain, burning up his arm and along his shoulder.

  Wounded, then, he thought, gasping. How badly? He forced himself to shift again, gingerly, carefully, and the terrible pain returned, from everywhere at once, every inch of skin, every bone, every muscle. He gritted his teeth to keep from screaming. It was impossible to tell where he’d been hit. Was it a musket ball, a saber slash, a lance wound? Waves of white-hot misery tried to drown him, and he fought for air. The soft hand touched his brow again, soothing him as if he were as child caught in a nightmare.

  Where was he? He remembered the call to charge, and setting his spurs to his horse’s flanks, recalled the fire belching from the black mouths of the French guns. After that . . . there was only blackness.

  His ears pricked at the sound of footsteps. Why didn’t someone light a candle?

  “He’s awake,” the woman said again, her vo
ice soft and hopeful. “That’s a good sign, isn’t it?”

  A good sign? Was he as far gone as that?

  “Possibly,” a gruff male voice replied to her question. Stephen could smell tobacco, knew a man leaned over him.

  He lay still, tried to assess his injuries. It hurt to draw breath, so he must have broken a rib—or was some internal part of him damaged beyond repair? His left arm and shoulder were on fire, throbbing like the devil himself was gnawing on him. Broken, perhaps—or was the limb filled with puss and gangrene? Wouldn’t he be able to smell it if it were putrefying? Would there be a woman present if he was hideously deformed or diseased? He wondered how long it had been since the battle ended. He had no way of knowing. He wanted to ask what day it was, but someone probed his forehead, and the pain made him forget everything else but that. He tried to lift his hand to fend off his tormenter, but his limb wouldn’t obey. His fingers scrabbled uselessly on the linen beneath them until a hand slipped into his, and he gripped it hard, glad of the comfort.

  The probing stopped, but the pain continued. He heard water splashing into a bowl, the slosh of hand washing, and smelled the faint scent of soap.

  “Is he . . .” Stephen heard the woman’s breathless, truncated question. He felt her fingers tighten on his as her voice trailed away.

  “Will he live, d’you mean? If fever doesn’t set in he might. He’s not properly awake yet. Let him rest. I’ll come again this evening.”

  This evening. How many hours away was that? “What time . . . ?” his voice came out like gravel.

  “It’s all right, Stephen.” She let go of his hand, and he heard the sound of water again, felt the cool swipe of a cloth across his brow, warding away the threatened fever.

  “Who’s there?” he asked. Her voice was tantalizingly familiar, her identity caught on the edge of memory. She called him Stephen, so she must know him. “Julia? Dorothea?” The cloth withdrew, and she was still for a moment.

  “It’s me, Stephen. Delphine St. James. Don’t you recognize me?” Of course. The memory of her kiss came back, the feel of her mouth on his. He licked his lips, found them dry and cracked.

  “What are you doing in the dark?” he asked. “Light a candle so I can see you.”

  “Dark?” There was a tight note of surprise in her tone that he didn’t like. “Why, it’s broad daylight. Just past noon, in fact.”

  The prickle of unease that seared along his spine was as unpleasant as the pain. “Then open the drapes,” he snapped. “It’s pitch dark.”

  He heard the sound of the cloth falling back into the bowl of water, heard the rustle of her gown as she moved to the window, listened as the drapes hissed open. Still he saw nothing.

  “Light a candle,” he ordered, unease turning to fear. “Light a candle!”

  She was so silent that he thought she’d gone, but then he heard the rapid staccato of her shoes on the floor, the sound of the door opening.

  “Doctor?” she called out. “Come back! He can’t see!”

  Blind? The word filled his mind, turned pain to sheer terror. He opened his eyes wide to prove her wrong, blinked, tried to adjust to the darkness, but he saw nothing. He forced his hand up to his face, ignoring the agony the movement caused, and rubbed his eyes, felt the bruises and cuts on his face object. Still the darkness would not clear. He reached out, trying to touch her, to touch anything, but the air around him was empty.

  Then she caught his hand and he squeezed it as if it were life itself. He felt the embarrassment of hot tears running down the side of his face. “No,” he said. “No.”

  “I’m here,” she whispered. “You’re alive.”

  Was he? She said it as if he’d won a prize. He stared into the darkness and saw no life at all.

  Chapter 7

  Stephen Ives was blind. Delphine stood in the garden, staring into the darkness of the lush June night, trying to imagine what that felt like.

  The doctor had examined him, and found no reason for his blindness—at least no injury to his eyes. They remained as clear and gray as they had ever been, if carefully devoid of the horror that had filled them when he first realized he could not see.

  Delphine closed her eyes, listened to the sounds around her, the wind in the trees, men moaning in pain, the far-off strains of someone singing a sad soldier’s ditty about roving from battle to battle with never a chance to rest. She smelled lilacs—their heavy fragrance almost overwhelmed the dreadful stench of the distant battlefield, carried all this way on the breeze. Many of the dead still awaited the services of the overworked burial squads.

  With her eyes still closed, she reached out to touch the stone wall that surrounded the terrace. She’d walked along here a hundred times, hurried up and down the steps that led down to the lawn without a thought. How far was it from this spot to the top of the stairs? How many steps would it take? Ten, perhaps? A dozen? She walked forward with her eyes shut, shuffling carefully, counting out ten paces, expecting to fall at any moment. She stopped, her heart pounding. When she opened her eyes, she stood on the edge of the top step, staring down into the dark garden. One more step and she would have fallen. She stepped back and clung to the wall.

  The world was a different place without sight. It became a thing of memory, where only the past lived, and there was no hope of seeing anything new. Did Stephen remember the ball, the sight of her face? That was how he would forever think of her. She would never grow old to him. Perhaps that was a blessing. Didn’t every lady want to remain forever young and beautiful?

  Did her father look at her mother and still see the young beauty he married? Did Fairlie revel in the changes time wrought in Eleanor, still loving the sight of her smile as the seasons revolved and the years passed? Delphine pictured her sister as she’d been on her wedding day, and as she was now, at this very moment—tired, overworked, her eyes filled with compassion and care for the men in her charge. Surely she was more beautiful now. And she recalled the day Eleanor’s son was born. She’d been exhausted then too, but flushed with joy. Delphine had seen the look of love and pride that had passed between her sister and Fairlie that day, and had felt her breath catch at the marvel of that kind of adoration.

  What if Fairlie had been blind, had not been able to see his newborn son’s face, or the smile in Eleanor’s eyes? All he would have was memories. Would it be enough? Perhaps love died in the dark, unable to take pleasure or sustenance from the sight of the object of affection.

  She held up her hand, turned it over, looked at it. She’d never considered it before. She took the sunrise, the sunset, the green of grass, the white glow of moonlight for granted. What if the sight of those things, of everything, were suddenly taken away?

  Stephen Ives was a soldier and a diplomat. A diplomat depended on his ability to read the moods of others, to gather information by observation, to make them feel comfortable in his presence. A soldier could not fight or command if he could not see. Her stomach ached with sorrow. Stephen faced a life of being dependent on others to be his eyes, his interpreters of the world, helpless without someone constantly by his side.

  She had imagined he would make the perfect husband—smart, handsome, and brave. Who would be brave for him, now?

  He’d mentioned someone named Julia. Would she be his eyes, his hands? To love a blind man would surely be something only an exceptional woman would undertake.

  She studied her hand again. Was she, Delphine, exceptional?

  For him, she wished she was, but all her life she’d been pampered, cared for by her father, her mother, even her brother. Anything she had ever wished for was instantly hers. Except Stephen—he was the only man who’d ever rebuffed her, and the only one who mattered. He hadn’t fallen at her feet because she was rich, and her father was titled and Tory—quite the opposite. He disliked her for all of that, imagined her a society flirt, and a snob. And why would he not? He was a diplomat, a man who looked for substance in a person. But she wanted that—to be loved for what la
y inside her, her wits, her opinions, her ideas. She wanted to be useful and equal, and to be loved the way Fairlie loved Eleanor. Delphine wasn’t the creature her parents insisted she pretend to be for the sake of her father’s political ambitions and her mother’s social aspirations. That had changed the night she met Stephen Ives, but he didn’t know that. He’d turned away, and disdain had replaced regard and admiration in his eyes. It had been shattering.

  Would he see her better now?

  She looked through the window into the library, crowded with cots and injured men. For four days, she’d given them what they needed, and had taken nothing. She felt more alive, more human, than she ever had before.

  She stepped back and stood in the rectangle of light that poured down onto the terrace from her bedroom window. Stephen wanted the light kept burning day and night, just in case he woke, and could see again. He held on to hope. There was always hope. She felt the little flame of it burning in her own breast for his sake.

  What would become of him if his sight did not return? In a few weeks, she would return to London, go back to being an earl’s daughter. She would spend her days visiting, being visited, playing the piano, going to parties, watching the hands on the clock creep. She hated the idea. How could she dance and flirt and play when she’d been here, seen this? She wasn’t that woman any longer.

  She kept her eyes on the lamp in the window. There was an alternative.

  Stephen needed her, and it was time to grow up.

  Chapter 8

  “In short, major, you have two broken ribs, and your left arm is also broken. I dug three bullets out of you, one in your shoulder, and two in your back. You’re fortunate they didn’t hit anything vital. I kept the balls in case you’d like to see—” The surgeon realized what he’d said and trailed off. Stephen imagined the good doctor’s face turning scarlet. He kept his own expression flat, remained silent.