The women of the camp entered into the spirit of the inspection, as they cleaned bedding and hung it out to dry in the bright January sunshine.
Vevina was hanging Stewart’s sheets near his tent when the new Major, resplendent in a uniform without a speck of dust despite the ten mile ride, came galloping into the camp with several of his junior officers. He sat astride a magnificent white horse which drew all eyes towards it, especially Vevina’s.
She clung to the washing line for support, almost snapping it as she dashed behind the sheet and peered out. It was her own horse Ivory, and only one man could be riding it.
The man dismounted his horse stiffly. From Vevina’s vantage point she could see several of the officers give him a look and remain in their saddles. The Major strode forward alone, and Vevina, cowering behind the linens, noted his stunned surprise as Stewart came out of the tent.
“Major Fitzgerald, sir, of the South Warwickshire,” Stewart introduced himself, as he squinted in the glare of the morning sunshine.
Vevina could hear the sucked in breath of the new toy Major, who said, “Major Fitzgerald, of the Lincolnshires.“
He avoided shaking hands as he stepped back and declared, “My staff shall remain here, while I inspect your men.”
If Stewart was stunned to see his twin brother there he made no sign, but slipped on his hat and smartly marched forward, long legs striding out, to inspect his troops.
Though they were so similar, Vevina observed, there was no doubt as to who was the superior man of the two. Battle worn though his uniform was, and despite the lines of fatigue and worry, not to mention the darkened, slightly puckered scar which ran along his jaw, her Major was infinitely the handsomer and more impressive of the two figures.
But Vevina shook her head as these frivolous thoughts distracted her from her main concern. If Samuel was in the camp, she and her brother had to conceal themselves now.
As soon as Vevina had offered the other visiting officers refreshment, she ran into her brother’s tent, and declared in an urgent whisper, “Samuel is here! He’s a Major in the army, with the regiment ten miles down the road from us!”
“Are you sure?” Wilfred gasped.
Then he began to look vengefully at his musket, which lay in a corner of the tent.
“No, Will, think for a moment!” Vevina said, as she saw which way his thoughts were leaning. “He isn’t after us. How could he know we were here? How could he have become a Major? Surely he hasn’t taken all this trouble just to find us, when he could be at home living off the fat of our land!” Vevina argued fiercely.
Will finally relaxed. “So why is he here?” he puzzled.
“I don’t now, but I scent danger, and not just for us. Do you remember how we read that a Major Fitzgerald had been killed, not long before father was arrested?”
“So you think he might be here to track down his own brother? But surely he could have done that without joining the army.”
“I know, besides which he hated his brother, so Samuel would hardly bother to bestir himself. No, I'm certain from his reaction when our Major came out of the tent, that Samuel had no idea his brother was still alive.”
“So why on earth would he come here to this hell on earth? He was the worst fighter and swordsman in Cork, Dublin, or indeed most of Ireland,” Wilfred sneered. “A sudden taste for glory?”
“Big pickings to be had, more like, but they would have to be very big for him to leave behind everything he stole from us.”
“What makes you say that, Viv?” Wilfred asked with a frown.
“Because as you just pointed out, he isn’t a career soldier like his brother, so how on earth did he become a Major in the last six or seven months since we’ve seen him?” she wondered.
“He bought his commissions, then, and somehow was unlucky enough to get this one?” Wilfred speculated with a bitter laugh.
“Samuel bought them all right, but he must have specifically bought this one! Don’t you see, Will, only a battle-hardened soldier would come to the front, or a very desperate one, and a battle hardened one wouldn’t need to buy a commission. He would be put forward for it automatically after the seniority of each the remaining officers in the regiment was determined.”
Wilfred nodded. “You’re right there. Something is definitely amiss.”
“Samuel might be running away from something back home, which would account for his being so displeased to meet his brother face to face.”
“Very likely, but the point is, what should we do about it now?”
“Run away ourselves," she suggested. No, not desert, just go on a long hunting expedition with Beckett and Mitchell for the rest of the day.”
“Good idea,” Will said, reaching for his weapon. “And if I see any stray dogs in the woods, I’ll shoot them!” he said with a grim smile.
"Please, will, don't do anything rash. I hate him as much as you do. Nay, more. But we need him alive. If we don't get to the bottom of his plot against us, we may never be able to clear our names and get back all he stole from us."
Wilfred nodded. "You're right, of course. I'll try to stay calm, but if it's us or him, I'll shoot first and deal with the consequences afterwards."
"If we get away now, it won't come to that. Let me just get a few things just in case, and then we'll be off. Wait here until I give you the all clear,” Vevina instructed, then went back to Stewart’s tent for her money pouch, weapons, and ammunition.
Suddenly she heard footsteps outside.
“Now if you’ll just step inside, Major,” she heard Stewart’s voice drawl sarcastically, “I shall have my serving woman bring us a light repast, and you can discuss the correspondence with my new secretary.”
Vevina cowered in the corner, and looked for a means of escape. The flap of the tent opened, but then fell again, as she heard Samuel bellow in an urgent tone, “Private Grimes, I wish to see you now!”
The footsteps went around the tent. Vevina overheard Samuel whisper angrily, “I though you told me he was dead. The newspapers, reports of the disaster at Almeida! Everyyone said he was dead!”
“The corpse might have stolen his property, had it on him when he got caught in the vlast. It was a wrong identification of the body, sir.”
“Obviously, unless amongst my brother’s many other amazing talents he can also rise from the dead!” Samuel spat. "The question is, what the hell do we do now?"
“Begging your pardon for bringing this up, sir, but everyone in the Army knows what a career soldier he is. I wouldn't want to be you when he finds out what you’ve been doing back home in Ireland, turning off the tenants, laying waste to the Joyce estates.”
She hear Samuel struggle with the other man, whom she recognized from his voices as the burly ape known as Joe who had roughed her up and occasionally brought her bread and water when she had been held captive in Clancar Castle.
“Damn it, he isn’t going to find out, is he, because this time, he is going to die. You're going to see to it with your own two hands, is that clear? All of my plans depend upon it.”
“Yes sir, I'll be happy to help, so long as the price is right.”
“Major Fitzgerald, if you please!” she heard a deep voice call tauntingly. Stewart.
Judging from the tone, and all she had just overheard, there was certainly no love lost between them.
She poised for flight out from under the canvas at the rear of the tent. Though if Joe saw her…
She was about to take her chances with the hired thug rather than meet Samuel again face to face when she heard Ensign Parks gush, “So pleased to meet the Major’s own brother. Come to my tent and try the foie gras and caviar.”
The footsteps which had been scuffing outside the tent flap vanished into the distance now.
Vevina grabbed the last of her essentials, hurried to the other tent for her brother, and fled past the their old tent into the woods.
Once she was sure they were alone, in confidential whispers,
Vevina told her brother all she had overheard.
“This is getting out of hand. We must tell the Major what Samuel is up to!” Wilfred declared urgently.
“And risk exposure ourselves?”
He rubbed the back of his neck, but at length nodded. “He has been kind to us, despite knowing our names are false. He's always known we aren’t what we pretended to be, but has been too polite to say so. I’m sure his growing fondness for you has prevented us from being sent back where we came from, Viv. He could have told us to return to our mess, or kept you as a serving woman and sent me back. He’s protected us time and time again from Hawkes. He’s saved both our lives already, Viv. The Major wouldn’t feed us to the wolves if it meant hurting you,” Wilfred argued.
“It might if it was his duty, but even worse, what if he is involved in some way with our family’s disgrace?”
“What do you mean?” Wilfred gazed at her, horrified.
“Samuel tried to marry me with father’s consent. That didn’t work. Why not bring in the big gun, his elder brother, who stands to inherit everything anyway, and get help with his scheme? My fiance Willoughby disappeared just after father was accused.
"I know he was a weak pathetic stick of a man, so I don’t blame him for running away, but I can’t help wondering if he's still alive, or whether his disappearance was engineered by Samuel so we would be completely friendless.”
“No, Stewart isn’t like his brother, it’s impossible,” Wilfred declared uneasily, but she sensed his hesitation.
Vevina demanded sharply, “What is it? What do you remember?”
“Nothing, it’s too silly an idea to even contemplate,” Wilfred snapped. But he remembered the tall dashing Major who had insisted he was desperate to marry Vevina at the engagement ball over a year previously. He had removed his mask for a moment before going into the library to speak with their father. He was sure of it now. It had been Stewart Fitzgerald.
But as for a plot, he couldn’t be certain. When he had trailed along to keep him company in the library while he waited for Vevina’s reply, he had found nothing but the French windows open, the candles extinguished, and a large bronze statue on the floor, which he had put back on the side table before going in search of his sister through the garden door.
Wilfred said nothing of his recollections, but merely gazed directly at his sister with his candid blue eyes and insisted, “No, he has always played fair with us. We have to trust Stewart, especially if his life is in danger.”
“Maybe we should wait, then. Do what he has been doing for us.”
“And that is?”
“Never let him out of our sight, and try to find some clues as to why Samuel is so desperate to see the back of his brother. More importantly, we need to know why he's here in Spain in the first place, instead of in Ireland living the high life.”
Will nodded. “All right, but we’ll have to tell the others something if they are to help.”
She thought for a moment, then her eyes lit up. “Just say we’ve heard a report that the French are planning to assassinate English officers in order to throw the army into confusion, so we need to take extra care with our Major since we're so close to the front. That will do for now.”
"Aye, I think it will work. And isn't so far from the truth. Cuidad Roderigo is the key to our success in driving the French back where they came from. If we lose our advantage here, well, God help us all."
She gave her brother a grim smile. "I've always been taught that the Lord helps those who help themselves. I want to keep Stewart safe for his sake, and that of our victory here against Napoleon. If we can do that and get to the bottom of Samuel's plot to ruin us, it will indeed be a gift from heaven."
Chapter Twelve
Will and Vevina hunted in the woods for a time, and then enlisted the aid of their mess mates to help distribute the largesse to all their comrades who needed it.
They were more than happy to help in exchange for some select cuts, and Martha helped with the cleaning and plucking, and began cooking right away at their bivouac.
They also brought some of the bounty to Doc Gallagher, who was more than grateful.
At the end of their day out hunting, after Mitchell and Beckett had made yet another trip back to headquarters with all their booty, Mitchell remarked, “You have enough food to feed the whole army in this camp for a week! Let’s go back. That other major is done inspecting the fortifications, and I ran into Parks. He do tell that our Major's been tearing up and down the camp all day looking for you.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That you were with Will and Beckett somewhere.”
They trudged back, and Vevina spotted a furious Stewart coming back from Doc Gallagher’s tent.
“Where on earth have the two of you been! I’ve been out of my mind with worry, and had to give an entire account of our fortifications and defences and supplies without being able to lay a hand on a single piece of paper I needed because my secretary took it into his head to go off for a romantic interlude with his wife,” Stewart snapped, looking daggers at Will.
Beckett cleared his throat and asserted, “That’s unfair, sir. They were stocking up on food, thinking the officers were going to be staying. They haven’t been out of my sight or Mitchell’s all day.”
Beckett’s quietly dignified statement made Stewart pause for thought, as he saw the huge pile of dead birds, rabbits, deer, and even small wild boar which had mounted up outside the cooking tent.
“I see. Well, goo job, but you should have asked permission first in case I needed either of you,” Stewart said curtly.
“You were busy Major, with your guests, and we wouldn’t dare presume to disturb,” Vevina said with a proud lift of her chin.
“Well, you efforts are appreciated, though they have gone to waste, for our guests have departed, and are not likely to return,” Stewart said grimly.
“Good food never goes to waste around this camp, Major,” Vevina sniffed. She stepped past his towering presence, pointedly ignoring him as she began to prepare the meal.
He sighed, and strode off to check the fortifications once more, completely at a loss as to how to deal with her, or his own feelings about her. He hated feeling as if he were always just on the verge of losing control whenever he looked into her dazzling eyes.
Many hours later, Vevina sat looking over all of Stewart’s official papers, trying to discover what their enemy's possible goal could be.
Finally at about midnight, she shook her head and said, “I can’t see it, Will. Whatever Samuel Fitzgerald is after, we're just going to have to wait and see. All of these papers seem standard military business. Seals, information, requisitions, codes, but nothing so important he would be willing to pay a great deal of money for.”
Stewart, standing outside the tent, froze as he heard the last few words of her sentence. He hoped to hear more, but all he could detect was the sound of the papers being rustled back into some semblance of order.
He gave them another few seconds, and then entered without calling out to them as he usually did.
Vevina was standing by the table, tying red ribbons neatly around each parcel, but neither of them jumped guiltily when he came in, and continued to work uninterrupted apart from Will’s remark, “Glad you’re here. I’ve tallied those figures for you, and they all add up now. Wellington will be impressed with your frugality.”
“Thank you, Private James. Now Vevina, you’ve had a long day with all that hunting, so perhaps you should go to bed,” Stewart declared.
Vevina looked up from her work and smiled. “Yes of course. I’ll see you in the morning, Will,” she said with a wave.
The young man remained at the table finishing his work, and called a distracted “Cheerio!” to her as she left.
Stewart observed the young man’s casual continuation of his work for a few minutes more, and then stepped out of the tent into the bitter cold to stare up at the night sky, and he contemplated the
problem before him.
What he had overheard troubled him deeply, but there had to be some sort of logical explanation for it. Perhaps it had something to do with Hawkes, blackmailing them into selling secrets?
Or worse still, perhaps the whole situation with Viv James coming under his care had been a carefully orchestrated plot by the French or someone else to worm their way into his confidence, and then steal his military secrets, for which they would be paid money.
Stewart now realized that nothing had added up about the Jameses since they arrived. Worse still, he had ignored all the warning signed. Had been diverted from his duty and normally cautious nature by the sight of her pretty face and her alluring presence. How could he have been so blind?
Scars Upon Her Heart (The Scars of The Heart Series) Page 9
