It had simply been too much of a risk.
Most of all, she’d been too proud.
She closed her eyes and imagined how it would be if she chased him to the Continent and told him those things. He’d be furious with her for going there. He’d made it clear to her more than once that he’d wanted her to have nothing to do with his military life or with the Gordon Highlanders.
He’d stare at her, bristling, his anger at her presence compounded no doubt by the anger she’d incited with her caustic words to him that last time he’d come to Norsey House.
But she wouldn’t allow any of that to inhibit her. No, she’d shed her pride and tell him everything. Beg his forgiveness. Beg for him to live.
He might reject her. He might toss her on the next ship back to England.
She needed to decide if cleansing her soul was worth the price of his rejection.
Days passed, then weeks, as Claire’s mind struggled with her need for her husband’s forgiveness and her fear of him turning her away. Of the look of absolute dispassion on his face when he laid eyes on her.
With June came a hesitant summer, clouds gathering and dumping rain, then clearing to frigid temperatures that bled into warmth. And on the tempestuous morning of the fifth of June, Claire finally settled into a decision.
There was no other option. She needed to take the risk. Her heart would never forgive her if she didn’t.
She knocked on Grace’s door. When she entered the room, Grace looked up from her desk, where she was writing a letter.
“Grace,” she said quietly, “will you come with me to the Continent?”
Chapter Two
June 19, 1815
The Waterloo Battlefield
She would not falter.
Claire had never imagined it would be like this. The thought of such things ever being possible in this world had never crossed her mind. Her stomach churned, threatening to toss back up her breakfast. Her knees wobbled, and her teeth began to chatter, but she clamped her jaw shut so they wouldn’t.
These men had endured this, and they’d been in the thick of it. Their lives had been at risk, not hers. So many of them were injured and in pain. If they could bear it, then so could she.
Thanks to delays first by her father, who’d needed cajoling and settling before he’d even consider allowing them to go to the Continent, then by difficult weather, she and Grace hadn’t arrived in Flanders until the seventeenth of June. She’d learned there had already been a battle at Quatre Bras, and because Colonel Cameron of the Gordon Highlanders had been killed, the leadership of the 92nd had fallen to her husband.
He was still alive. But the campaign was by no means over.
She and Grace had slept an anxious night at an inn in the port town of Ostend, and the following morning hired a carriage to take them to Brussels, hoping to meet Rob and his Highlanders there. But by then, the army was already in the thick of another battle near the village of Waterloo. Agitated, Claire had asked their driver to leave for Waterloo before dawn this morning.
They’d just arrived at the camp, their travel excruciatingly slow due to the number of soldiers and horses and carts crammed on the road. The morning was cloudy and the air thick with mist. Claire, her sister, and their maid, Mary, had stepped out of the carriage to be accosted by an English officer who knew nothing of the fate of the Gordon Highlanders. Busy handling his own injured and dead, he’d gestured them to a clearing where the 92nd had congregated.
Claire walked toward the men, most of whom were sitting in small groups on the muddy ground, haggard, muddied, and war-shocked, awaiting their orders. As she approached, they all turned wide-eyed gazes upon her as if she were some sort of apparition.
“Is Major Campbell here?” she’d asked, scanning over the group, trying not to allow her composure to crumble at the sight of all the bloodied bandages and pale faces. Trying not to allow tears to brim in her eyes at the realization that Rob was not among them.
There were several negative responses, and one red-haired man frowned at her and asked, “What is it ye want from ’im?”
“He’s my husband.”
Several brows shot up, and Claire’s heart twisted. Well, then. Rob had clearly never told his Highlanders much about her. If he’d told them about her at all. That hurt more than it ought.
After the initial shock of hearing her identity, every single one of the men rose and removed their hats in respect. One man stepped forward. He was older and steadier than most of the other men, and he was very handsome, with an angular face, a shock of dark hair, and bright green eyes. He doffed his ragged cap and gave her a small bow. “Captain Sir Colin Stirling, milady.” He lifted his head, studying her intently. She thought that this man might have known of her existence. He didn’t gaze at her with the fascinated surprise of the other men, but rather with curiosity.
“I’m sorry to tell ye we havena found him yet,” the captain said softly. “We’ve been searching the field, but there’re so many—”
Claire’s hand flew to her chest. “Is he dead?” she gasped.
The tightness around Captain Stirling’s lips exposed his worry. “We canna be sure. Not till we find him.”
“Will you take me to the battlefield? May I help in the search?”
He hesitated, then nodded. “Aye, milady, if that is what you wish. We’ll go now.”
Flanked by soldiers for protection from the rabble, they walked down a pitted road to the site of the battle, Grace and Claire, side by side, following the major, while their maid followed behind. Mud sucked at Claire’s shoes, the mist beaded on her cheeks, and a chilling cold began to creep into her bones.
They passed through a narrow line of trees, and Captain Stirling came to an abrupt halt. Claire looked past him and sucked in a breath.
“Oh God,” she whispered.
A trampled field heaped with bodies of horses and men. Debris everywhere. Smoke still rising from scattered fires. People sobbing and calling. Others standing still, as she was, just taking in the destruction…the sea of desolation and death…
But it was impossible to take it all in. It was so oppressive as to be unbearable.
“He was there,” Captain Stirling said, his voice full of gravel. He gestured to his left. “My troops were just there, but I couldna see him, the smoke of cannon and musket fire was so thick. I didna ken…” The words dwindled away.
Grace laid her hand on the captain’s shoulder, and Claire saw that the man was trembling. The horror of yesterday would not be leaving these men anytime soon.
Claire swallowed past her bone-dry throat. “You ought to go back, Captain. I’ll search for him. I shall let you know if we find him.”
“Major Campbell would never forgive me if I left ye alone in this place. I’ll stay.”
“Thank you,” Grace said softly. She and Claire agreed to separate so they could cover more distance. Claire went to the right, where Captain Stirling had said Rob had started the battle. Grace went farther to the left, at the other end of the line of the Gordon Highlanders.
And then it began. The endless slog through destruction and misery. Death felt like a living thing, shimmering up into the air in stinking waves of blood and flesh and smoke.
Rob couldn’t be dead, Claire thought firmly as she walked through the nightmare. She wouldn’t stand for it. She hadn’t apologized yet, and Providence wouldn’t allow her to travel to the Continent at all if she wasn’t able to come in time for her apology.
She picked her way over the battlefield—instantly dismissing those in blue coats, looking closer at those in red. She found two Gordon Highlanders, one man who’d lost both his arms and who stared blankly up at the sky with cloudy blue eyes. One a private who was injured and moaning softly, apparently having suffered a terrible blow to his leg. She called one of the surgeons over to attend to him and continued to search for her husband.
It was hopeless. Her stomach was so twisted, and she was growing lightheaded. It was too mu
ch. Just…too much. How did one take in all that she was seeing? It was simply impossible.
Ahead in the distance, a russet-haired, broad-shouldered man crouched on one knee, looking down at one of his fallen comrades. Judging by the fit of his jacket, he could be one of the Gordon Highlanders. But she couldn’t tell if he wore the Gordon tartan by the way he was positioned behind the body.
Claire took a step in his direction, and he looked up. He studied her for a moment from across the battlefield, then he rose unsteadily, his hand moving to doff a hat that wasn’t there.
The way he held himself… God, could it be Rob? Claire chewed on her lip, trying to beat back her clambering hope. She lifted her skirts and walked toward him.
Don’t be a frightened ninny. Don’t burst into tears. It is absolutely not allowed. You must seem calm. You must appear composed.
She carefully stepped over the debris, and as she drew closer, the wind ruffled his hair and his square jaw came into focus, and she knew, without a doubt, that this was her husband.
“Rob,” she whispered. As much as she tried to beat it back, the emotion she’d been trying to suppress came bubbling free, and she gave a little, wild laugh. “Rob?”
Thank the Lord, he was alive. Her husband was alive!
Joy burst through her the likes of which she’d never known, and for the first time she realized the true extent of her fear for his life.
His face compressed into a tight mask of wariness, but she didn’t care. Let him be angry with her. He was alive, and that was all that mattered.
“Claire?” he asked in his familiar Scottish rumble. She’d missed it so much.
He looked suspiciously at her, then down to the man that lay by his feet, and finally back up to her again.
“What’re ye doing in this accursed place?”
“I came for you,” she said as she took the final steps toward him. Every cell in her body demanded she throw herself into his arms, but something held her back. His hands had remained clenched at his sides, he was so pale, and the way he was looking at her… It was almost as if he was afraid.
“You canna have me,” he said gruffly. “Not without young Archie.” He braced his feet in a defensive posture as he gestured down at the boy lying at his feet.
She frowned at her husband, confused. He must still be dazed from battle. “Of course,” she murmured. She held out her hand. “Come with me, Rob.”
He took a step back, staring at her hand as if it bore a lethal weapon.
And then he fell to his knees, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he slumped forward.
He’d fainted.
Claire rushed over to him. He must be injured after all, she thought with a twist in her gut, to have fallen like that.
She attempted to turn him to no avail, then finally managed to move his head so he could take in air unimpeded. As her hand slipped over the back of his skull, her fingers slid over a bump the size of her fist. She quickly moved her hand away from the area, so as not to disturb it, and gently turned his head to take weight off the injury.
She cradled his cheeks in her palms and stared down at him. Mud and blood caked his face, and his unshaven skin was rough in her hands. His eyes were closed, and in spite of the muck, he looked peacefully asleep, russet brows long and lush arcing over his eyes, his chest rising and falling in slow, deep intervals.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered to him, because it was safe now that he couldn’t hear her. “I wish I’d never said an unkind word to you.”
She pressed a kiss to his dirty brow, then lifted her head. The mist had cleared a bit, revealing Stirling walking tentatively at the edge of the battlefield and looking green about the gills. “Captain Stirling! I found him.”
Stirling gathered some men, a sprung carriage, and a cot to transport Rob to the field hospital at Mont-St-Jean. But when they arrived, a surgeon told her there was no room for him there, especially given his comparatively minor injuries. Even unconscious, evidently, her husband was considered one of the walking wounded.
It was ultimately a relief—Claire didn’t want him in that fetid place anyhow. Instead, they returned him to the 92nd camp and laid him in a tent.
What wasn’t a relief was that when they arrived at camp, she learned that the regiment had received orders to march that afternoon. Wellington was leading his army to Paris.
Certainly they did not expect her unconscious husband to march with him!
Apparently, however, they did.
Claire frantically attempted to find an officer with the power to give her husband leave to stay behind and recover. But Rob’s colonel had died back at Quatre Bras. The commanding officer of the brigade had been injured, and the leader of the Fifth Division, General Picton, had been killed. The chain of command had fallen apart, and while the army was quickly scrambling to reorganize, thoughtful care and arrangements for the injured seemed to fall by the wayside.
As Claire was about to pull out her hair in frustration, the Duke of Wellington, of all people, entered the camp. He drew Captain Stirling aside and spoke to him for several moments, casting several long glances at Claire. Then he gave a small bow in her direction, turned, and walked away.
Stirling took a moment, seemingly to compose himself, then he strode over to Claire, wide-eyed.
“The duke has arranged a house for the major in the village.”
“Really?”
“Aye. His Grace said that Major Campbell and I, as well as a few others, are not to march with the regiment this afternoon. We’re to stay in Waterloo and await further orders.” He sounded completely bewildered.
“Is this…unusual?” she asked.
“Aye, it is. I’ve never even laid eyes on the duke before, save at a distance. Though he does owe Major Campbell his life. Did ye ken your husband saved Wellington from certain death once?”
Claire puffed up with pride as she always did when she thought of how Rob, a captain at the time, had risked his own life in the Battle of Salamanca to rescue Wellington from a collapsing bridge. After the battle, he’d been granted a baronetcy and promoted to major…which was the turning point in her father’s approval of him.
“Yes, I did.”
Stirling’s brow furrowed. “So…the major is relieved of his duties for the time being while he recovers… Yet why must I remain as well? I’ve no injuries. I should be marching with the regiment, but I am ordered to stay. It makes no sense at all.”
“It does seem a little odd,” Claire agreed—it was a mystery, but she refused to look a gift horse in the mouth. “Can we have him brought to the village right away? I want him to be comfortable.”
They employed some soldiers to put Rob back in the carriage, and then they slogged through the traffic and mud to the village of Waterloo, which was stuffed to the gills with injured men and soldiers on important business running this way and that. Rob slipped in and out of consciousness, and whenever he woke, he seemed disoriented and confused.
The house Wellington had procured for them was far better than most of the hovels in the village, with six rooms and modern appointments. Its owner, Madame Lucien, graciously opened her door to Rob, and to Claire, Grace, and their maid.
As they passed through the entryway, two men bearing his cot on each side, Rob woke and attempted to get up, grumbling that this wasn’t where he was supposed to be and shoving at one of the privates who’d been tasked with carrying him.
“Nay, ye’ll be listening to me for once, Major,” Stirling said good-naturedly, though that haunted look still hadn’t left his eyes. He gestured at Claire. “Ye’ll stay here until you identify the bonny lass who’s come to fetch you.”
Claire had no doubt that her husband had identified her—he’d known who she was the moment he saw her. What was confusing was his reaction to her. She had expected anger, but wariness and fear rolling in sheets off her husband when he looked at her was as unfamiliar to her as staring into the eyes of a chimpanzee.
Rob’s blue gaze
slid in her direction. He stared at her for a second, then slumped back onto the cot, the fight leaving him.
They settled him in the bedchamber, and Stirling put a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll be returning to the lads. I must see them off.”
“Of course,” Claire said. “You go ahead. I’ll sit with him.” Realizing she had been so focused on Rob she hadn’t seen Grace in at least a half an hour, she added, “Have you seen my sister?”
Stirling nodded. “Last I saw, she was helping the surgeon with the wounded.”
Claire sighed. “I see.” Leave it to Grace to make herself useful, no matter the situation.
“Will ye be all right, lass?”
“Yes,” Claire said firmly. “Go, sir. Your men need you.”
“There’ll be two guardsmen posted at the door. Dinna hesitate to ask them to send me a message if ye require anything.”
“Thank you.”
Stirling took his leave, and Claire pulled a chair to her husband’s bedside and watched him sleep. He hadn’t budged since his stirring as they’d walked him into the house, not even when they’d rather awkwardly dumped him onto the bed.
Should she try to wake him? No… She’d heard somewhere that healing was better accomplished in sleep. She’d just sit with him until his body told him it was time to wake. But she could try to clean him up a bit.
She unbuttoned his coat, which was tight across his wide shoulders. He was too heavy for her to remove it completely, but at least opening it would give him a little more room to breathe.
There was a pitcher of clean water on a plain square table in the corner, and a drawer containing folded towels beneath. Once the towel was damp, she began the painstaking, gentle task of cleaning her husband’s exposed skin. There was so much mud and blood, it took nearly an hour, and she ran out of water before she could call him even close to clean. During that whole time, he didn’t move, but his breaths turned heavy and even as if he were in a deep sleep.
A Highlander's Heart: A Sexy Regency Romance (Highland Knights Book 1) Page 2
