The Last Waltz: Hearts are at stake in the game of love... (Dorothy Mack Regency Romances)

by Dorothy Mack

  “We must stop him! We must make him return!”

  “How? He has been gone for hours. The Ninety-fifth was forming up even as we left the ball last night.” Looking perfectly distracted, Miss Beckworth was kneading her forehead with the fingers of one hand while she continued to stare at the paper she held in the other.

  “General Forrester!” exclaimed Adrienne, exploding out of her chair. “Perhaps he has not yet left Brussels. He’ll find Luc for us and send him back.” The girl was at the door before she finished speaking, rejecting out of hand Miss Beckworth’s suggestion that they should send the footman with the message. “No, no, I must speak with him myself!”

  She was back within the hour. No words were required to inform her companion that her mission had not met with success. She slipped into the small sitting room like a pale ghost of her former self and made a negative movement of her head when Miss Beckworth raised anxious eyes to hers.

  “The general left shortly after dawn himself.”

  Though entirely sympathetic, Sarah Forrester had not been able to offer any advice as to how to make contact with an army on its way to an engagement for the purpose of expropriating one of its most anonymous members. She had, however, somewhat diffidently ventured to suggest that the time might pass more rapidly for Adrienne if she were to participate in the preparations that would be necessary for the care and comfort of the wounded.

  The distraught girl had jumped at the opportunity to throw herself into a vital task. She’d have been eager to assist in any case, but now she yearned to be frantically busy as a means to preserve her reason against the onslaughts of a disordered imagination.

  “I truly think I should go mad confined within these four walls just waiting for news, Becky.”

  Watching the girl’s agitated pacing as she explained, Miss Beckworth was inclined to accept this statement at face value. She was grateful to Sarah for providing work that would use up some of Adrienne’s undirected energy. It was agreed that Miss Beckworth would remain at Rue Ducale for the present to watch over Jean-Paul, though she would hold herself in readiness to assist the other women as the need arose.

  For those who waited in Brussels for news of the battle, all sense of time was lost during that anxious period following the dawn departure of the army. On the surface life went on as usual for the citizens, but even they were aware of the listening attitude, a feeling of emotional distance from everyday activities. The foreigners sought each other out, gathering in small groups to seek or exchange information and speculate on the outcome of the expected battle. Many were involved in frantic attempts to leave the area. Anyone owning horses or vehicles could name his own price as these commodities became totally inadequate to the demand. Moulton hired extra men to guard the earl’s stables around the clock. The roads to Antwerp became choked with travellers evacuating the capital.

  By late afternoon, the distant rumble of cannonading could be heard in the city. The reports coming into town were confused; the one clear fact emerging was that an engagement of sorts was taking place somewhere south of Waterloo village, which was about ten miles from Brussels. The firing stopped eventually and they settled down to an uneasy night, their rest disturbed by the rumble of artillery trains heading south. Just before dawn, a troop of retreating Belgian cavalry came racing through the town on their way north to the Nivelles gate, causing a minor panic with their shouts that the French were coming. The hours that followed proved this rumour unfounded, but the wounded from the previous day’s fighting at Quatre Bras did come, under their own power or in the military tilt carts, and their plight brought visitors and citizens alike into the streets to render what aid they could, even if it were only to offer water and provide shade for those dying in the cobbled streets in the pitiless blast of summer heat. The sun’s disappearance in mid-afternoon was a welcome relief until it was rapidly succeeded by torrential rains that impeded efforts to get the wounded into the shelter of the hospital tents being erected outside the city gates.

  The uncontrollable tension as each new group was searched for a glimpse of one or the other of those beloved faces took its inevitable toll on Adrienne and Miss Beckworth. A pain-wracked young rifleman with an empty left sleeve told Adrienne that the Ninety-fifth had not only been engaged in the battle of Quatre Bras, but had covered the retreat north to Mont St. Jean, just south of Waterloo. “First in the field and last out of it” was the Ninety-fifth’s motto, he informed her with a brave attempt at jauntiness that twisted her heart. As the afternoon wore on, she struggled constantly to control pity, horror, and impending nausea at sights and sufferings she could never have envisioned a day ago. And always there was the underlying dread that stalked her soul. The services the women could render were so slight, the materials at hand so pitifully inadequate, but they persisted doggedly until driven inside by the drenching rain allied to physical and mental exhaustion.

  Adrienne was too fatigued to do more than pick at her food that night, but though her aching body cried out for sleep, such was her emotional torment that she rose from her bed on Sunday morning more in need of repose than when she had lain down upon it. Word of a Prussian defeat at Ligny on the sixteenth and their retreat to Wavre cast more doubt than ever on the eventual outcome of the war. Informed opinion held that Lord Wellington’s patchwork army could never defeat Napoleon’s experienced troops without aid from the Prussians. Bonaparte had struck at the point between the allied armies to divide them and prevent his troops from having to face the enemy’s combined forces. That the battle would be resumed that day was universally assumed, but no sounds of firing reached the town with the wind in the wrong direction. The hours dragged by while the women waited in painful suspense that was exacerbated by their work among the wounded who continued to pour into the city. By all accounts it was the bloodiest battle in memory, with staggering numbers of casualties on both sides. By six P.M., when Miss Beckworth insisted that Adrienne return to the house for a rest, the outcome of the fighting was still unknown by those wounded who had managed to make their way back to Brussels. They reported the conditions of the roads to be bad everywhere and impassable in places where overturned wagons and abandoned supplies would have to be cleared away.

  The women retired indoors, too depleted in energy to make any efforts at conversation while doing less than justice to their dinner. It was too early to go to bed, so they resumed their vigil, mostly silent now, each keeping her deepest fears to herself from a superstitious dread that vocalizing them might cause them to happen.

  The street was fairly quiet until almost nine o’clock, when the sound of horses outside brought Adrienne out of her chair and down the stairs at a dead run. She was right behind Moulton as he swung back the entrance door, her face mirroring anxiety and hope, her hands unconsciously pressed to her pounding heart. For a split second, she failed to recognize the tattered and dirty figure standing on the step; then she shrieked, “Luc!” and rushed forward to throw her arms around him, almost rocking him off his feet. “You’re safe! Oh, thank God!”

  “I’ve got Dominic outside,” said the boy, regaining his balance with difficulty as he stepped back from his sister’s embrace. He still hadn’t looked directly at her, and a chill began creeping over Adrienne’s body.

  “He’s not…?” Her mouth hung open, but she could produce no more sound and was unaware that Miss Beckworth, alerted by her cry, had come downstairs and now slipped a supporting arm about her waist.

  “He’s alive but not in prime twig,” said Luc, again in that dulled tone. “The trip here tried his endurance pretty high. He’s been unconscious for the past couple of hours.”

  Before the youth finished speaking, three of his four listeners had deserted him. Moulton, Adrienne, and Antoine were rushing outside to where Nelson still sat his mount, supporting the earl, who was slumped in front of him. Two riderless horses stood nearby.

  The eyes of the two persons remaining in the hall clung together in wordless communication until th
e boy’s composure cracked. “If Dominic dies it will be my fault, Becky. What am I going to do?”

  A suspicious moisture shone in Miss Beckworth’s eyes, but her voice was serene and confident. “Do? Why, see to it that he recovers, of course. We shall all do that.”

  His lordship’s household sprang into action for the relief of the master, as Adrienne, the unheeded tears sliding down her face, led the procession upstairs, lighting the way to the earl’s bedchamber with a candelabrum she had seized from the entrance hall. She was searching for a knife to cut his boots off when his batman gently but firmly put her outside the door despite her furious protests that she intended to nurse her cousin.

  “And so you shall, miss, as soon as Antoine and me have got the colonel into decent nightclothes,” that individual said calmly.

  “Try not to hurt him,” she pleaded. “He looks so dreadfully weak.”

  “We’ll be as careful as possible,” promised the man, closing the door on her remonstrations.

  Adrienne stood irresolute, staring at the panelled door for a few seconds until Becky’s voice roused her. Luc had insisted on being the one to go for Dr. Martin, sending Nelson off to the stables to see to the horses. Adrienne received his information with an absent nod.

  “Becky, Dominic looks half-dead. That head wound is still bleeding, judging by that filthy bandage.”

  “It isn’t the head wound that is of greatest concern, my dear. Luc said the field surgeon was going to amputate his wounded leg. That’s why he brought him home.”

  An anguished moan escaped Adrienne’s lips before she clamped her teeth together. Only when she was sure she had herself under command did she speak in a quiet voice of utter conviction. “Nobody is going to cut off his leg. I shan’t allow it.”

  It was over an hour later that Luc, still in his ragged uniform, slipped silently into his cousin’s room to report that he had been unable to contact Dr. Martin in person and had been forced to leave an urgent message at his house. By this time, Dominic was lying between clean sheets, the grime washed off and the disgusting bandage on his head replaced by a fresh covering. However, his stertorous breathing and ashen complexion were enough to inform the boy that any visible improvement was merely the result of soap and water.

  “Has he regained consciousness at all?”

  “No.” Adrienne subjected her young brother to a thorough inspection, and her heart was wrung with compassion. He had escaped serious injury, thank heavens, but he was certainly not unmarked by his experiences. As he pulled up a chair nearer the bed, she urged, “Please, Luc, you must rest. There is ample hot water for a bath and plenty of food. We’ll talk tomorrow. I’ll send Antoine back to the doctor’s later.”

  He shook his head. “You don’t understand, Adrienne. It’s my fault Dominic was wounded. He pulled up his horse when he recognized me, and a cuirassier shot him. How can I sleep until I know he’s all right?”

  “Don’t talk fustian, Luc! Who knows how many other bullets may have just missed Dominic today, equally fortuitously?”

  The bleary-eyed youth blinked stupidly but was prevented from attempting a comeback by the entrance of Miss Beckworth, who announced that a bath and a meal awaited him. Too weary to protest convincingly, Luc allowed himself to be led away by Miss Beckworth. She returned an hour later to say that he was already in his bed, and to persuade Adrienne, though with little hope of success, to do the same while she sat with Dominic. As expected, the girl refused to leave her cousin’s bedside. Her wan face brightened momentarily on learning that Antoine had volunteered to station himself outside the doctor’s house so that he might explain the urgency of the case to him immediately on his return. She accepted the laudanum Becky provided to quiet Dominic should he begin to thrash about in pain, and resumed her vigil.

  Over the next few hours her eyes rarely left his face, which was quiet for a time while he was sunk in an exhausted stupor brought on by the jolting journey from the battleground. Greedily she memorized every plane and ridge of that beloved countenance against a future that would separate them. Her fingers longed to follow her eyes along the sensitive curves of his lips, and she curled them into her palms to resist the temptation. After a while he began to move about in his sleep, and spasms of pain flickered across his features. Adrienne got up and leaned over him to re-tuck the covers around his shoulders. As she drew back, she found herself staring into burning blue eyes inches from her own.

  “Hello, little one.” His voice was weak, but he knew her, and a swift glance around acquainted him with his surroundings. He tried to smile. “So Luc did get me home?”

  “Yes. Is the pain very bad, Dominic?”

  “Nothing to signify,” he lied, moving restlessly. “Did we win?”

  “Win?” Adrienne looked blank for a second, not having spared the war or its outcome a thought since her cousin had been brought home. “I don’t know. We are waiting for the doctor. Perhaps he will have news. Would you like a drink, Dominic?”

  He nodded, and Adrienne strained to raise his shoulders a few inches so he could drink. The action seemed to use up his strength for a time and his breathing grew more difficult, but after a moment he said with a little twist of his lips, “I’m glad we had that last waltz.”

  “It wasn’t the last one! Dr. Martin will save your leg. He must!”

  Dominic smiled a little at her ferocity and made a tiny gesture of comfort with his hand. Adrienne took the hand in hers, and they remained thus until sounds in the hall at about two in the morning indicated an arrival.

  Events moved swiftly from the doctor’s entrance, which was followed in short order by Adrienne’s exit from the sickroom. She left under protest, having flatly refused to comply until Dominic, whom she believed to be sleeping once again, added his voice to the doctor’s ordering her removal. She went no farther than the corridor outside his bedchamber, where she paced compulsively during the hour and a half it took Dr. Martin to remove the bullet with the assistance of Moulton and Crimmons, the earl’s cool and capable batman.

  The grey-faced doctor, himself almost groggy with fatigue on his emergence, did not give her the reassurance she craved. The earl had endured the operation with exemplary fortitude, but the chance of infection was great and he must resign himself to the eventual loss of the leg if his body could not throw off the infection. Meanwhile, he concluded brusquely, having been given a heavy dose of laudanum for his own good, the patient would likely sleep for some hours, and he would strongly advise Miss Castle to do the same if she intended to be of any use in the days to come. At this point the doctor accepted Moulton’s escort downstairs, where a carriage waited to take him to his well-earned rest.

  Adrienne, who had listened to the physician’s gloomy prognostication in mute but smouldering rebellion, at least possessed the sense to accept his advice with regard to herself. After a quick visit to the sickroom seeking confirmation that Crimmons would remain by his master’s side through the night and call her at once at any change in his condition, she took herself off to her own room, pausing only to bring Becky, who was still wakeful, up to date. It wasn’t until she had climbed wearily into bed that it dawned upon her that she had forgotten to inquire about the outcome of the battle. The passing thought that the enemy might be at the door any moment was not sufficiently terrifying to keep her aching body from making up the sleep it had missed recently.

  Adrienne was still sleeping at nine the next morning when a carriage pulled up to the front door. Antoine, on his way to do an errand for the housekeeper, opened the door just as Sir Ralph Morrison, with one hand under his sister’s arm, pulled back the other hand that had been about to bang the knocker.

  “Good morning, sir, madame,” said the startled footman, recovering his wits.

  “We have come to see Lord Creighton.”

  “I regret that his lordship is unable to receive visitors, madame,” replied Antoine, addressing the speaker. “Would you care to see Miss Beckworth?”

  “N
o, no, we won’t disturb Miss Beckworth,” said Lady Tremayne. “We came to inquire for Lord Creighton. Is it true that he has been wounded?”

  “Yes, madame.”

  “How serious is it? How is he?” she demanded sharply.

  “The doctor fears that it will be necessary to amputate his leg.”

  Lady Tremayne recoiled with a gasp, a look of revulsion contorting her features. She seized her brother’s arm and dragged him back a step.

  “Does your ladyship wish to leave a message?”

  “No! No, thank you. We’ll call at a more convenient time. Come, Ralph.”

  The young footman stared impassively after the departing callers as they climbed back into the hired vehicle. Not until it moved off did he turn and go about his business.

  An hour later, a small package, accompanied by a letter addressed in a feminine hand, was delivered to the earl’s residence and placed with the small pile of mail that had accumulated in the period of his lordship’s absence from Brussels.

  During the next few days, the post was the last thing on the minds of those residing in the stone mansion near the park, as all their combined energies were employed in assisting the master in his desperate battle to survive his wounds in the wake of the great victory at Waterloo. As the doctor had foretold, infection invaded the site of the wound, and fever and delirium followed. For want of any more efficacious treatment, hot fomentations were applied to the leg around the clock. At first, the earl’s condition grew steadily worse and the issue of removing the leg hung in the balance, with the doctor favouring that more prudent course, while Dominic’s relatives urged waiting a bit longer to give his strong constitution a chance to master the infection. By the third day, Adrienne felt the downward spiral had been arrested, and she waited anxiously for the doctor’s visit, hoping for confirmation that Dominic’s tumultuous pulse was steadier and his leg less inflamed. If the Belgian physician could not entirely agree with her reading of the situation, at least he was persuaded it was safe to delay a decision for another twelve hours.