For Love or Honor

by Sarah M. Eden

  “What is it you suspect?”

  “Let me tell you rather what I have observed. I am hoping you may have suspicions or, at the very least, thoughts on what may be behind the state of her health.” Marjie nodded, and Philip continued. “As I said, she is in more pain than before, but more than that, she seems to be struggling to walk, relying more on her cane than she has been in recent months. It is as if her balance is off, as if her hip has once again, despite her brace, become prone to misbehaving. ‘Slipping from joint’ was the phrase the surgeon, MacAslon, had used when explaining why he was unable to fix her hip as he had the rest of her leg. The hip was shattered enough to prevent it from fitting together as precisely as it ought but not so badly that it is unusable.”

  Marjie had heard as much when she had first come to live with Philip and Sorrel not more than a month after Sorrel’s corrective surgery. A fleeting thought that perhaps Stanley had suffered a similar injury moved swiftly through her mind.

  “As if to negate my assumption that she had simply overused her weak leg, she seems to be ill.”

  “But you said she was not—”

  “Not feverish,” Philip said. “But in all other respects, ill. She has virtually no energy. I have never known her to sleep so late in the day, nor to appear so entirely unrested upon awaking.”

  “Perhaps she is tired from the journey?” They had made the long trip from Town only a few days before.

  “We have traveled distances before, and though I could see she was tired, she never allowed that to stop her from rising at her usual hour and pushing through her day. Especially not several days later.”

  That was true enough. Though Marjie loved her sister dearly, she had to admit Sorrel was remarkably stubborn.

  “What is more, she returned her breakfast tray this morning entirely untouched. She did little more than pick at her luncheon and took only the slightest bit of nourishment at tea before insisting she had no appetite.”

  Marjie had never known Sorrel to be a poor eater. She was by no means gluttonous but had never been one to skip meals. The only time Sorrel ever chose not to eat was in the midst of her fevers, when she was too ill to do so.

  “Has this happened before?” Philip asked. “If she were feverish, not that I wish for that, this would make a great deal more sense. She insists she is fine and has even become irritated with me over my concerns. She told me to stop being a ‘fussy nursemaid.’”

  “Then she isn’t terribly ill.” When Sorrel was truly ailing, she was far more accepting of the help she required. If she was objecting so vocally, she was far less unwell than her symptoms would indicate. “I cannot say this has happened in the past; her illnesses have always followed a very predictable pattern. Were this her usual ailment, she would have been quite feverish already and would now be on the road to recovery.”

  Philip pushed out a breath that could either have been relief or frustration. “Perhaps I should send for Dr. Habbersham.”

  “I wouldn’t advise it,” Marjie said. When Philip looked ready to object, she hastily explained. “If you subject her to doctors when she has no real need of them, she is far less likely to submit to their care when she does.”

  Philip offered a small nod as if to acknowledge the wisdom of her words. “Do you think she has any idea how much I worry about her?”

  “Yes.” Marjie was certain of it. “And I imagine she wishes you didn’t have to.”

  “True.” They sat a moment in silence before Philip spoke again, his forehead still creased with lines of worry. “Have you made any progress with Stanley?”

  Marjie’s heart ached further simply hearing his name. “No.”

  “I have attempted to talk with him about his experiences, hoping he would reveal something that would explain the change in him, but he was entirely unwilling.”

  Marjie nodded. Stanley had been very closed off about his experiences when they had spoken about her letters. “I cannot help but suspect that he does not talk about his time away because he does not wish to think about it.”

  “I have heard former soldiers speak of their army days,” Philip said. “To be sure, they focus on the more lighthearted moments as opposed to the battles and suffering, but I cannot say I have any experience with someone who avoids speaking of it entirely.”

  “He told me he did not write to anyone because he did not want us to worry.”

  Philip laughed but without an ounce of humor. “Because six months of silence would convince us all that everything was fine.” He shook his head. “If he had merely wished us not to worry, he would have written the sort of things soldiers write to their families, speaking only of friends and the weather and the places he was seeing. He would have made it sound as though he were on an extended holiday. Not writing at all doesn’t make sense. Stanley was never the secretive type. There had to have been more of a reason than that.”

  Marjie thought so as well. Stanley hadn’t written to anyone. She could understand his concern that she or Mater would have worried if he’d shared the more difficult experiences he’d had, whatever they were, but surely he didn’t think Philip or any of his other brothers would have wallowed in concern over him. They were made of sterner stuff.

  “Beggin’ yer pardon, Yer High and Mighty Lordship.”

  Marjie turned toward the sound of the voice. Stanley’s valet stood just inside the door. He was a young man, probably close to her own age, who always looked just a touch cocky.

  “Yes, Pluck?” Philip had already transformed into the picture of dandified elegance he always presented to the world. He swung his quizzing glass on its ribbon, looking bored and utterly carefree.

  “I was told to post these here letters fer Cap’n Jonquil, but I’m thinkin’ iffen yer High and Mighty Lordship would frank ’em, it would be a great help to them that’s getting the letters. ’Twould save them the cost of paying for ’em when they arrive.”

  “Of course. I will frank any and all of Captain Jonquil’s correspondence.” Philip’s eyes had narrowed. Marjie let her gaze jump between Philip and Pluck. Had she heard correctly? Stanley was writing to someone?

  “There’re two letters,” Pluck said, holding them up.

  Philip gave Marjie a look of confusion as he rose and took the missives. It took but a moment to frank them in preparation for posting. Marjie had long thought it an odd quirk of the postal system that the recipient was required to cover the cost of sending a letter. It had always seemed to her it ought to be the other way around. Philip, whose status as a member of Parliament gave him the right to send mail that did not have to be paid for on the receiving end, had franked all of her letters to Stanley, as well as those she sent to Fennel. Her younger brother, no doubt, appreciated not having to spend his pocket money on letters from his sister.

  Marjie came and stood near Philip’s desk, looking across at the letters lying there. One was addressed to a Mrs. Goodwin and the other to a Mrs. Hammil.

  “I am certain there is an explanation,” Philip said.

  Marjie blinked back a tear. If he was writing to these women, why had he never written to her?

  “I’ll jus’ give these to the butler,” Pluck said, reaching for the letters.

  “No.” The suddenness of her response surprised even Marjie. She grabbed the letters off Philip’s desk. “I’ll give them to him after I finish the letter I am writing to Fennel.”

  She was nearly to the other side of the house before she finally admitted to herself the reason for her insistence on keeping Stanley’s letters, even temporarily. She had wanted a letter from him so desperately for nearly half a year that to finally hold one, even one not addressed to her, was a temptation she hadn’t been able to resist. Those two sealed missives, addressed to women she had never even heard of, represented months of dreams that had never come true. She clutched the folded parchment even as she felt her heart crack painfully inside.

  Chapter Twelve

  An hour remained until dinner. Stanley wasn
’t overly hungry, but he waited impatiently for mealtime. Only during dinner did he allow himself Marjie’s company. The temptation to throw all his convictions aside and make a push to win her affections, regardless of the impact on her or anyone else other than himself, had nearly proven far too great. Avoiding her had seemed the best option.

  Pluck disagreed. Stanley had lost count of the number of times his batman had used the phrase “rush the wall” during their journey to and from Nottingham that day. By the time they’d returned to Lampton Park, Stanley had informed him in language one learned only in the army just what he could do with that wall. And Pluck, being Pluck, had laughed.

  Stanley had denied himself the luxury of lying down, knowing he was tired enough to simply sleep through the night. He would not miss dinner. He had to see Marjie at least once that day.

  So he was wandering the halls, passing the hour before his favorite time of day. He had regained some of his stamina. The commissariat couldn’t compete with the Lampton Park chef, nor could the constant tension of life in the aftermath of war offer even a hint of the solace found in the peaceful English countryside. Being home again, Stanley could almost believe in the divine reparation his brother Harry and so many of his fellow clergymen preached of. He almost felt hopeful that the familiar words of Ecclesiastes were more than the empty poetry of the ignorant—maybe there was indeed both a time to kill and a time to heal.

  Stanley walked to the conservatory without thought. He had spent a great deal of time there the past three days. He sought Marjie’s company vicariously, hoping he could find in the walls of glass a tiny bit of her comforting presence.

  He took in the moist, earthy air of the indoor garden in such an enormous quantity that his entire chest swelled with the influx of breath. The air held the very smell of life. Odd that in all the years he had lived at Lampton Park he had never realized the significance of that aroma. Five and a half years of becoming nauseatingly familiar with the smell of death had given him an appreciation for its opposite.

  Before the lungful of air had a chance to dissipate into his spent and broken limbs, all the air was pressed from him in a whoosh of surprise. Marjie stood near the iron bench that he had occupied day after day. She did not look at him but rather watched the dimming light of day outside. The blazing hues of sunset gave her golden curls a hint of fire. He, like a moth to a candle, felt himself drawn to her.

  He moved closer. Either she was very distracted, or she was ignoring his arrival. He knew he didn’t move quietly; his walking stick tapped loudly against the stone floor of the conservatory. Yet Marjie didn’t look at him as he approached.

  As he drew nearer, he could see she wore a very pensive expression. What was worrying her? He had heard through Pluck, who had obtained the information from the bevy of servants below stairs, that Sorrel remained unwell. Perhaps her sister’s health weighed on her.

  “Good evening, Marjie.”

  That she didn’t seem at all startled by his sudden words told Stanley she had, in fact, noted his arrival. She still didn’t look at him.

  Marjie wrapped one arm around her middle; the other appeared to be pressed to her heart.

  “Marjie?”

  She didn’t respond, which was not at all like her. Was she hurt? Ill?

  He moved with more speed than grace to where she stood. “Marjie, what—?” The question died on his lips. A tear sat in the corner of her eye, seemingly ready to drop. He searched her face for some clue, some indication as to the source of her suffering. That tear hovered only a moment longer before slowly slipping down her cheek.

  Stanley’s heart seized painfully in his chest. He stood, frozen, watching the tear fall. Nothing should ever make his Marjie cry.

  “You have been writing letters.” Her whisper shattered the silence that surrounded them.

  “Yes. I sent two today.” The admission seemed to upset her. “I was a little late in doing so.” The letters ought to have been sent from France, but being ordered back to England had interfered with his plans. “I am hoping the recipients will forgive the delay.” He had no idea how those letters were received. It was entirely possible they were resented.

  “How late were the letters?” Something very odd colored her tone—it was flat, very nearly emotionless.

  “A fortnight.”

  Marjie looked up at him then. The anguish in her eyes cut through Stanley with all the searing pain of the bullet he’d taken at Orthez. “I waited for six months.” Her voice broke on the words. Mingled with her look of pain was a flash of anger Stanley hadn’t been expecting. “But my letter was not merely delayed, was it? You never had any intention of writing to me.”

  “Marjie—”

  “I am certain those women will forgive you a fortnight’s delay.”

  Enough accusation hung in that sentence that it set Stanley’s back up a little. Getting those letters written and posted had taken a great deal of effort, considering he absolutely hated the undertaking. He did not need further proof that he would never be entirely free of the blasted war. It followed him all the way back to England, back to his place of solace. Was even his time with Marjie to be tainted by it?

  “I am certain you had something very important to write to them about.” She seemed to doubt it, as if it had been a letter filled with the idle gossip of two aged dowagers.

  Tension rippled through Stanley’s body. Something important to write about? He felt his jaw clench. Was he now to be criticized for attempting to redeem what little remained of his soul? “I had the immense privilege of informing ‘those women’ that their sons are dead.” The words snapped out of him. Lud, he hated the army sometimes.

  “Dead?”

  Somewhere in the back of his mind, Stanley registered the suddenly fragile quality of Marjie’s voice. “Two of my men. They were killed in France just before I left.”

  “But I thought the war was over.”

  “It will never be over,” he grumbled. He turned away, ready to leave. He needed to push all thoughts of war and death and fighting out of his mind. He needed to remain in control of himself. Again, his oft-repeated survival strategy echoed in his mind. “Always a soldier.” He needed to clear his thoughts, to step behind his shield of neutrality once more.

  He felt the light pressure of Marjie’s hand on his a split second before the flash of pain that followed. He winced, pulling air in through his clenched teeth. He could feel his hand shake, and he struggled to keep hold of his walking stick. As suddenly as her touch had come, it disappeared.

  He waited for the questions, for the words of pity and worry. She would fret; she always fretted. He did not want to be the invalid to her nursemaid. She was supposed to be an angel, untouched by violence and suffering, and he was meant to be a source of only happiness for her. That had always been what he’d imagined. Before Napoleon’s return and the resurgence of war, he’d dreamed of that both literally and figuratively. Marjie was always meant to be his escape from the slow, deteriorating death of guilt and regret born of years spent in the business of warfare.

  But Marjie didn’t ask any questions. When her silence stretched longer than Stanley could endure, he turned his head back to look at her once more. No pity registered in her face. Though there was a hint of worry, she mostly looked heartbroken.

  “I am sorry I was short with you,” she said, her chin quivering as she spoke. “I was just so . . . so—” Marjie dropped her eyes, and her cheeks pinked with what looked like embarrassment. “Jealous.”

  Jealous?

  “All I ever wanted was a letter, Stanley. A single note. I know you said you didn’t want me to worry, but not hearing from you, not knowing . . . It was horrible.” Again she wrapped her arms, both this time, around her middle, almost a self-offered embrace. “At first, I simply told myself you were busy, that you had more important things to do.” Stanley heard her implied words. Marjie saw herself as unimportant to him. “But after Waterloo”—Stanley winced at the name, just as he al
ways did—“I was desperate. We all were. Every day the lists grew longer, and every day I was more afraid to read them.”

  “What lists?”

  She looked up at him again. Her eyes were bleak, haunted. Without thought, Stanley reached for her, cupping her face in his left hand. She closed her eyes just as she had that night by his fireside. “The casualty lists,” she whispered. “We read them every day. I felt so relieved when your name didn’t appear, but I could never be certain. Names were added all the time. I died a little every day as I searched, so afraid your name would appear there.”

  Here was yet another reason to feel guilty. By not sending word that he was alive, he had added to their distress. His family would have recognized that whatever he sent had not been written in his own handwriting, he not having a usable right hand. That would have piqued their suspicions that all was not well, and they would have worried anyway. Nothing he did seemed to truly help them.

  “What a coldhearted person I must be to be jealous of these women you have written to, who have lost so very much when I have you here safe with me.” Another lone tear slid silently down her face. “I only wanted a letter. I wanted it so desperately.”

  His throat constricted. She needed to understand, at least a little. But explaining any part of this meant thinking about the horrors he’d barely survived, reliving the pain and the sounds and smells of the battlefield. It meant admitting he’d come home disfigured and broken. He couldn’t admit all. But she ought to know enough to ease her own pain.

  He brushed the track of moisture from her cheek with his thumb. He lightly caressed a wispy gold ringlet before allowing his gloved hand to slide down her arm and clasp her hand. He needed the strength of her touch. “I didn’t write the letters to those two women.”

  “But you said—”

  “I dictated them.” He was determined to conclude his confession before his memories overpowered him. “I have sent letters to the families of every soldier in my squadron who has been killed in the more than five years since I joined the army. Most families receive no notice or regrets from the army beyond what few personal effects can be returned to them. It is cold and unfeeling, but that is the nature of war.”