It Started at Waterloo

by Lynne Connolly

  He saw someone he recognized, one of the men who had commented on his behavior with Amelia in Mont St. Jean, after the battle. He wrung the man’s hand—by necessity, his left—and sat on the hard chair provided by an orderly. “How are you, Charlie?”

  “My, Mr. Kennaway, you’re looking like a perfect gentleman. I ain’t never seen you so fine.”

  “I didn’t wear my best clothes when I was working, Charlie.” He glanced at the man’s bandaged arm. “May I?”

  Before an assistant could do it, he swiftly unbound the bandage, revealing the healing stump. Charlie spared it a quick glance, then looked away. “I can still feel it some nights. I can move my hand and everything.”

  Will had heard that particular phenomenon before from many a solider. Some, sent into feverish delirium when their wounds became infected, raved that they were going home, that they were able bodied and they would go back to fight.

  Most had died. Although Will had vowed to find a cure for the terrible scourge of infection, he knew they were a long way toward the solution. It would only come with time and patience. Little steps, instead of one big one.

  He wanted to work toward that end. But with this new turn of events, would he be allowed to?

  Would Amelia still want to help him, or would her new life give her everything she needed? While he’d hate to lose his capable assistant, he would not have her turn herself into a martyr. He wanted her happy.

  But he’d wanted Charlie to keep his arm. Such were wishes.

  His pleasure in seeing the arm, healing nicely, was only dimmed when the orderly, hovering behind him, insisted on rebandaging the stump. “Be sure to change it every day,” Will told him, “and leave it open occasionally. Let it get to the air.”

  The orderly stared at him as if he were mad. So did Dr. Raven, standing at the foot of the neat bed that was Charlie’s. The doctor waited with his hands linked behind his back, obviously eager to continue the tour.

  They walked through the wards, and Will stopped frequently, ignoring Dr. Raven’s increasing impatience. He would not hasten this part of his visit. In fact, a week ago he would have hoped to introduce himself and get on with his job of tending to the patients who had been brought here. He knew some, and others knew him.

  As they left the last ward, Will reluctantly and Dr. Ravens with an audible sigh of relief, Will said, “On the first day after the battle, I stopped looking at faces. It shames me that they know me when I do not know them. I should have paid more attention to the people they were. But in the haste of attending to as many as we could as fast as possible, I could not tell them apart, merely which part of them needed removing. If we’d had more leisure, we could have saved more. What compensation is it to these men to know that?”

  “They are alive,” Dr. Raven said coldly, “and in one of the finest buildings in the country. They should learn to appreciate what they have, lest it be taken away from them.”

  Will determined that he would be back, and in his capacity as surgeon. He had never felt so alive as he had at the height of battle, when he knew he was doing good, helping people. Making a difference to their lives, and so to his.

  He didn’t vouchsafe this to the doctor, however. He would save that for Amelia.

  However, when he returned home, in time to change for dinner, he found his wife knee-deep in silks and satins, with her maid in attendance. He beat a hasty retreat.

  An hour later, when she appeared, all he could do was stare. “Goodness!” he said faintly. She wore a gown in a deep pink, with frills and lace and some kind of puffy decoration around the hem. The cameo necklace made its first appearance, and the bracelet and combs he’d ordered added to the set.

  While he’d liked her hair, enjoying the air of delicacy it added to her elfin features, the combs and fol-de-rols her maid had added appeared too much. He preferred her simple style, he had to admit. This kind of elaborate toilette was something he associated with his mother and his relatives, not his wife.

  How could he say so? Instead, he said, “You look charming, my dear.”

  She smiled at him, but with no true pleasure. Her expression seemed empty. “I’m glad you like it,” she said. Something inside her had died, or retreated. He wanted the lively, intelligent woman back, not this clothes horse.

  If he told her he disapproved of her appearance, that would destroy her confidence, so he did not. He offered his arm, she put her gloved hand on to it and they were on their way.

  They discussed nothing special on the way to the Redmaynes’ house, except that Will told her what he knew about the family. “I haven’t seen any of ’em since I went abroad,” he said. “Lady Redmayne’s youngest, Sophia, will be about ready to come out. The oldest child is my age, and I believe Sophia is the youngest. They are Whigs, naturally, and they have some old-fashioned ideas.”

  “You mean they don’t like to change their opinion,” she said.

  He smiled. “Exactly.”

  The house was barely half a mile from their residence, but etiquette demanded they use a carriage. This was a town carriage, a little outdated. Will planned to change that next week, when he would attend Tattersalls for some new horses and to his favorite carriage-maker. He had a mind for a phaeton. But if his wife, a good whip, decided she wanted the high-perch phaeton, with its spindly seat precariously set right above the horses, he might have to put his foot down.

  The Redmayne house blazed with light, from the torcheres set in brackets outside the house to the brightly lit rooms on the first floor. The light proved their wealth in a blatant display, not needed in this summer evening. He’d operated with less light.

  As he escorted her the short distance to the front door, which was set open, Will murmured to her, “We could have made those candles last a month in the army.”

  She shot him a smile, and for the first time that evening he caught sight of the woman beneath the fine clothes and jewels. He had the strongest urge to turn around and return to their house, where he could keep her to himself and enjoy her company without the encumbrance of society trappings.

  “Longer, if we melted the stubs down and made new,” Amelia said.

  “You can do that?”

  “Of course. We used bootlaces for the wicks. It meant we could carry on our work for longer. And sometimes I would have one so I could read my book after dark.”

  They exchanged a secretive smile and then they went in. Amelia disappeared, replaced by the toneless but appropriate Lady Rothwell.

  Upstairs, she responded as she should and dipped into the correct depth of curtsey for everyone Will introduced her to. One of his reasons for coming here tonight was to give Amelia a relatively gentle introduction to society. In the morning people would say that they had met the new Lady Rothwell and she was eminently suitable. That would go a long way for her acceptance.

  Once accepted, she would begin the social round, and in time, become a society matron herself. He had no doubt she could accomplish that, if he helped her past the first hurdles.

  Lady Redmayne appeared disappointed he had married. She must have heard when they accepted the invitation, if not earlier, but perhaps she had thought to steal a march on the other mamas. A new earl—at least new to London society—possessed of a comfortable estate and fortune, would be a prize for them to pursue. Sophia was a miss of sixteen summers. She’d achieve seventeen by next Easter, a prime candidate for what promised to be a fruitful season. Once the Congress of Vienna concluded, the great and the good would pour home. Even if they did not, many returning military men had titles and fortune.

  Will would be the first salvo. “You actually worked as a surgeon?” she asked.

  “Of course. Nobody thought I would inherit, so I pursued my interests.”

  “How interesting! Did you treat many men?”

  Briefly a vision flashed across his mind, of the pile of severed limbs outside the field hospital, waiting for incineration. “Quite a few,” he said, smiling. “I’m still a qualif
ied surgeon.”

  “But you did not join the army?”

  His one regret from the last six years flashed through his mind. “I could not. They would have wanted my name.”

  Her mouth rounded into a pretty O. “And you did not tell them?”

  “I could not see the advantage in doing so. My family knew where I was, if they wanted me, but I preferred to go by Mr. Kennaway.”

  “My goodness, would your title not have helped you?”

  How could he make her understand? She was sweet, inexperienced and full of the stories circulated by the newspapers, rather than real experience. “Only in the worst way. I was there to help as many men as possible recover and return them to their regiments. No title, except that of surgeon or doctor, would have helped in that case.”

  She frowned, and then smiled sunnily. “But you are here now.”

  “So I am.” Where so many were not. But he felt no guilt, as some soldiers did. He had done his best and that was all he could have done.

  As had his wife. He practiced the word in his mind several times a day, telling himself he would become accustomed to having such a thing before too long. But at the moment the words “my wife” did not roll off his tongue easily at all.

  Perhaps he should revisit her bed after all, instead of giving her time to accustom herself to her new position in society. One thing at a time, he’d told himself. Watching her smile and nod when Lady Redmayne spoke to her, Will wondered if she would accept his renewed advances or merely tolerate him. He couldn’t bear that idea.

  A pang went through him. What was he turning her into? Had she always wanted this from life?

  He did not think so. She was working to please him, to ensure she was a good wife to him. That notion gave him all the guilt he would ever want. He would turn her into something she was never meant to be, and he would hate it. But if she needed to do this, then he would help her all he could.

  At dinner, they were not seated next to each other, but there being a mere twenty guests, he could hear what she was saying. She sat between their host and one of the Redmayne boys, the eldest son, the same age as Will. Despite the parity in age, Harry appeared a boy.

  He had not seen half so much, spent his time as a fashionable fribble should, hunting, spending money like water, keeping his tailor busy and flirting. He flirted much better than Will could have ever managed. At one point he had to steel himself when Harry leaned over Amelia on the pretext of reaching a dish of food and peered down her bodice, which was cut far too low for Will’s liking. Amelia seemed not to notice, but her cheekbones gained a pinker tinge, and she stiffened before Harry Redmayne resumed his seat.

  “Your wedding came as a surprise to us all,” Lady Redmayne remarked. “But your wife is delightful. I can quite see why you took a fancy to her. Who are her people?”

  Will gritted his teeth and did not answer for a moment. “She is the daughter of a major in Wellington’s army.” He would not mention that the regiment was not one of the fashionable ones. Even regiments had vogues. “She helped at the hospital, as many ladies did, when work was at its highest.”

  “But not a nurse!” Lady Redmayne exclaimed in horror. Spreading her fan, she fluttered it before her face, before closing it with a snap and replacing it by her plate.

  “No, not a nurse.” Nurses were drunken, low women, frequently prostitutes who couldn’t attract customers anymore. They performed the dirty work. Ladies never went near a chamber pot to empty it, except he’d seen Amelia do it when someone had to perform the task.

  He admired her for that, but the people around this dining table would condemn her for it.

  Ladies didn’t perform such menial tasks. They gathered together in inn rooms and wound bandages, or knitted items for the poor wounded soldiers. A few ventured to the hospitals. That was how Amelia had begun, but she had held limbs steadier than many of the assistants allotted to him, and he came to rely on her.

  He wanted that Amelia back. This one he hardly knew.

  “Respectable, I’d say,” he told her ladyship. That covered the family. Amelia came from the kind of family that lived on the fringes of society. Some of them disappeared, having spent all their money trying to follow the dictates of society. Others prospered, and it was a toss of a coin which happened. The debtor’s prisons were full of such people.

  Amelia’s family had their stroke of luck when she’d married him, but they had not realized it at the time.

  Lady Redmayne ate another forkful of her apple pie. Will had to admire her appetite. His had run out ten minutes ago, but she was steadily working her way through every remove on the large table.

  After dinner, her ladyship led the women away, leaving the men to their port and their manly pastimes, as she put it. Fortunately Lord Redmayne was not a man given to overindulgence, so he waited a mere half hour before suggesting they join the ladies. Will could have done without the snigger and the, “And we must not forget that we have a newly married man in our midst.”

  He forced a smile that hurt his jaw to maintain, but nobody seemed to notice.

  The drawing room was along the corridor instead of next to the dining room, as it was in many houses. As they approached, it became obvious to all the gentlemen that the ladies were not happy. Women’s voices pierced the air, not softly chattering, with the occasional laugh punctuating the flow, but voices raised in what sounded like anger.

  Will quickened his pace, but Lord Redmayne reached the door first. As he opened it, Will nipped through with a word of thanks. One of the raised voices was his wife’s.

  He halted just inside the door, moving aside to allow the other gentlemen in. Amelia was on her feet, facing the worst possible person she could have confronted. Will’s heart sank. Lady Ursula Buchanan, a high stickler, stood, nose in the air, fan flicking open and closed. Her considerable bosom heaved and her face was red with fury.

  “There is never any excuse for such behavior!” she trumpeted. She had been a staple of society for some time, certainly since Will had been a boy. She’d seen off so many society hopefuls she had probably lost count. “No wonder the duke found the battle so difficult if you refused to treat the officers first! Surely every officer is worth ten men!”

  “It was not a matter of worth,” Amelia said patiently. “We treated the people who needed it most. We saved more lives that way. If an officer could wait, then he waited. That makes eminent sense. The more people we could save, the better the army could work.”

  “But men trained to do nothing more than throw themselves at the enemy?”

  Fury burned in Will when he heard the soldiers dismissed in such a way. And how dare anyone, whoever they were, disagree with his wife? A person who had seen the worst of the fighting? This woman had sat on her fat behind—

  He stopped abruptly. This would be the first of such discussions, and if they went at it hell for leather, then they would deter many people from supporting them. He should intervene. But he could hardly take Lady Buchanan’s side, especially since he agreed with Amelia.

  “Those men had worked through many campaigns. They were experienced. They would have been as hard to replace as a good officer,” Amelia said stoutly. “They are alive today because of my husband.”

  Lady Buchanan turned her head and her gaze met Will’s. What on earth was he doing, even considering taking another person’s part? Her steely gaze paused and assessed. He could actually see her thinking.

  Everyone in the room sat in silence. Expressions of fascination and horror from everyone watching. The dispute would be all around London by breakfast. What had begun as a quiet and respectable dinner was ending in fireworks.

  But he couldn’t be sorry. Will watched his wife and saw the return of the Amelia he knew and admired. This was the woman who had stood up to any number of ruffians who tried to outwit or overawe her. She had stood, all five and a half feet of her, arms akimbo, chin stuck up, ordering them to behave themselves and do as they were told. No officer coul
d have done better.

  But this situation remained in Lady Buchanan’s hands. She was the arbiter of fashion, and if she decided Amelia was not good ton, then Amelia might find herself in the cold. She would never find her way into the inner circles, the places where decisions were made.

  Amelia didn’t back down. She would fight, and she would fight with him by her side. He would not leave her on her own.

  As he began to cross the room to her, she turned her head and her eyes flashed fire. She didn’t want his help. How could he stand by? But as he listened to her, outlining her points, his anger turned to admiration.

  “If we let the men die who we could have saved, is that good Christian behavior? And if we let men who have done so much for their country, is that fair? But apart from those moral considerations, it makes no sense to save men who could wait merely because of their birth.”

  She spread her hands in an expressive gesture. “But apart from any other consideration, when they were brought in we could not separate the men from the officers. The coats and the trappings of their rank were often gone. The men were unconscious or raving, so they could not speak for themselves.”

  “And what happened to their clothes and their swords?”

  “Looted on the battlefield,” she shot back.

  Silence fell for a full ten seconds. Will counted them. He had become used to counting time in his head. If he could not sever a limb in a short space of time, the patient would die of shock or bleed to death. A man would stand by, counting them down, watch in hand.

  Never had ten seconds seemed so long.

  Lady Buchanan turned her attention to Amelia, who was almost spitting sparks. “You must tell me more. Are you free next Tuesday afternoon? I would appreciate you coming to dinner. I will ask my dearest friends. If you care so much, perhaps you should think about forming a charity to help these poor men.”

  How he stopped himself pumping his fist into the air in a gesture of triumph, Will never knew. He barely stopped his unseemly gesture, but walked to his wife. “If Amelia is willing, we would be delighted to come.”