With This Ring (21 page)

“
No place else to put’um,” he said
in her ear.

“
Can you stand this?” she whispered
back.

His cheek was right next to hers. He
kissed her quickly. “Lydia, my men would say I had died and gone to
heaven. I’ve never suffered so well.”

She blushed. “Hush,” she whispered.
She caught the eye of the older man and felt her face grow even
more red.

The man nudged the major. “I didn’t
know women blushed anymore,” he said.

She felt the major’s chuckle. “This
one does. Aren’t I the lucky fellow?”

The woman across the aisle
harrumphed and rearranged her skirts again. “I don’t hold with men
who beat their women,” she said, her voice highly charged with
disapproval.

Goodness, this is infinitely more
interesting than the post chaise, Lydia thought in amazement. She
straightened up a little and looked the woman in the eye. “We were
married this morning over my parent’s objections,” she said. “They
didn’t think I should marry a common soldier.”

“
Common, eh?” he whispered in her
ear. “You’re a rascal.” He shifted her weight slightly, then
announced to the coach. “There was her da, deep in drink, and her
mama wailing in the background. I knew she would be safer with
me.”

Lydia nodded. “We have been writing
for years and years, all through Spain and Portugal. Thank God
Napoleon is on Elba, and my dear Sam was able to rescue me from my
own family.” She kissed his cheek in turn.

All sympathy now, the woman nodded
so vigorously that her bonnet tipped forward. “Mind that you treat
her right, lad. She deserves a good life.”

“
My thoughts entirely,” the major
replied, tightening his grip on her.

“
Dearie, if you can get some used
tea leaves after dinner tonight, and pack that on your face before
you go to bed, it’ll make all the difference in the morning,” the
woman advised.

“
Get out, yer old woman,” the man
next to them grumbled. “Didn’t yer hear the lad, saying they were
just married? Would
you
want tea leaves on yer face
tonight?”

If she could have slid into the
ground, Lydia would have. As it was, she had to endure the major’s
silent laughter behind her. Unwilling to look at anyone in the
coach, she began a serious examination of her gloves.

After a long stare at the old man,
who glared back just as defiantly, the woman turned her attention
to the lady seated next to her. By the time the mail coach started,
they were deep in a discussion of the ratio of water to salt when
pickling pigs’ feet. The others in the coach turned their
interests, variously, to a newspaper, a crying baby, and a greased
paper which yielded fish so pungent that Lydia felt her head
swim.

She thought the major was asleep, so
she settled herself more comfortably in his lap. He kept his firm
grip on her, and his lips were close to her ear.

“
You can prevaricate almost as well
as I can,” he whispered.

“
So pleased to hear it,” she
whispered back. She turned herself to be closer to his ear,
enjoying the fragrance of cologne on his skin as a welcome antidote
from the ripe herring that filled the coach. “I can only wonder
what other taradiddles you have in store.”

He considered her comment. “None
that I can recall, Lydia. A wife invented to preserve an
inheritance seems to be the best that I can do.”

She smiled and removed her bonnet.
“Was I sticking you in the eye with this thing?”

“
Uh-huh,” he murmured, his voice
full of sleep now.

“
Good!” she said with some feeling,
even though her voice was low. “I still think you are a
rascal.”

“
I will improve upon acquaintance,”
he said. In another moment he was asleep.

The mail coach stopped in Crosswich
to change horses and deposit passengers. “A tea leaf poultice,” the
woman insisted to Lydia as she got off the coach. The old man only
snorted, then returned to sleep.

Lydia kept their place as the major
went inside the inn with the others for food. He came back with tea
and two pasties wrapped in greased paper. “We’ll stay the night at
Mallow,” he said, handing her a pasty and stretching his long legs
in the coach.

“
How is your back?” she asked as
they ate.

“
It hurts. I can tell you that I
look forward to a bed tonight.”

“
Shouldn’t wonder, lad,” said the
old man. “She’s a pretty morsel. Coo, laddie, so you can blush,
too? What a pair you are!”

Lydia looked at the major and burst
into laughter. “And I will find tea leaves!” she said.

The coach was just as crowded when
they resumed travel, except that a mother and child had to double
up this time. Lydia sat beside the major and listened with
interest—and some personal pride—to his battle narrative, sparked
by a comment from a salesman about the victory at Toulouse. He
never mentioned his rank, and dressed as he was in civilian
clothes—in style six years ago—she wondered if the coach’s inmates
would have believed him, anyway. They would not imagine a major
riding on the mail coach, either, she thought, as she sat hip to
hip with him and absorbed his story of battle and army life. He is
certainly no one to be ashamed of, she told herself. Late in the
afternoon, he began to close his eyes, and fidget and suck in his
breath every now and then. She put her hand firmly on his leg. “He
needs to rest now,” she told the listeners. “Would you mind
terribly sitting over there, sir, so he could rest his head in my
lap and put his feet up?”

No one minded. Without a word of
objection, the major did as she said. He was even starting to
shiver, so she spread her shawl over him, and put her arms around
him. When he was asleep, she touched his shoulder and frowned. It
was hot. She rested her hand against his forehead, and her frown
deepened. Major Reed—Sam—you are not ready for this trip, she
thought. I wonder how long it will take us to get to
Northumberland?

Helped by their fellow passengers,
Lydia and the major left the coach at Mallow as the sun was going
down. “I know I can stand up,” he insisted, even as he continued to
lean against the salesman.

“
Sam, my dear, you can humor these
nice people who want to help,” she told him as she hurried ahead
across the inn yard to find a room for the night. She forgot to be
afraid or shy, even though she had never dealt with an innkeeper
before, and in a few minutes the keeper and the salesman had helped
him up the stairs and into a bed. “Thank you so much,” she told the
men. The keeper told her he would be back soon with soup and tea,
and she turned to the major.

You would think I was an expert at
this, she told herself as she helped him from his clothes, wincing
when he did, and holding her breath as she removed his shirt. He
obliged her by lying on his stomach, and she looked with some
distress at his right shoulder. “You know there is more matter in
this wound,” she told him. “I had thought General Picton’s
surgeon ….”

Wearily, the major shook his head.
“He got what he could, but not all. I …. I just couldn’t stand
any more. More shame to me.”

Lydia sat on the bed and rested her
hand on his head. “No shame at all, Sam.” His hair felt good and
thick under her fingers. She massaged his head, and he sighed, then
closed his eyes in sleep. “I don’t imagine I will ever hurt like
this,” she whispered. “Bless your heart.”

When the innkeeper brought Sam’s
campaign trunk, she rummaged in it until she found the salve that
the surgeon had compounded, and applied it to the wound. She stood
looking at him a long time, wondering what else she could do. She
could think of nothing, so she covered him, took off her dress, and
lay down beside him, careful not to touch his back, even though the
bed was narrow. She was asleep sooner than she would have
supposed.

When she woke, it was early morning
and the bed was empty. She was on her feet in an instant, looking
about in alarm. To her relief, the major was sitting in the chair
by the window.

“
You have not misplaced me, madam,”
he said, his voice full of humor now, and not pain. “I own, I wish
I had had subalterns in the Peninsula as quick to their feet as
you.”

“
Wretch!” Her face on fire again,
she quickly twisted her petticoat into its proper position and
reached for her shawl, which she wrapped around herself to cover
her chemise. “I had thought to be up long before you, considering
your state last night.”

“
Well, you weren’t,” he replied. “I
have been sitting here this last hour, vastly
entertained.”

“
Entertained?” she asked, then shook
her head. “I am sure I do not want to know.”

“
It was charming,” he insisted. “You
hum in your sleep. Did you know?”

I am mortified, she thought. “I did
not know.” She looked away, considered the situation, and came
closer. “I suppose there is no point to my being embarrassed by all
this.”

“
None whatsoever,” he agreed
cheerfully. “I feel better, too, by the way.”

He had pulled on his trousers over
his drawers, but his chest was bare. He turned around slightly, and
she forgot her timidity to look at his shoulder. Much of the
swelling was gone now, but the redness remained. Gently she laid
her palm across the worst of the wound. It was still hot. “I tried
to wish it away last night,” she murmured as she ran her finger
along the line of stitches, noting how tight the skin was
underneath. “You know that it will be swollen again by
evening.”

He nodded, then gently took her hand
from his back. “I know. Picton’s surgeon told me that I would
probably make it to Northumberland, if the trip is uneventful.” He
sighed. “Things always seem easier to bear in your own
bed.”

“
You’ll have to be physicked again,”
she said. She picked up the comb on the table beside the chair and
began to comb his hair. “Thoroughly.”

He nodded. When she finished combing
his hair, he looked up at her. “Are you feeling sorry for
me?”

“
I suppose I am,” she said, smiling
at his question.

“
Really sorry?”

“
I said I was!”

“
Then, sit down. I woke up early
because I remembered one tiny wrinkle to the plot that I forgot to
mention earlier.” He waited as she got her brush from her bandbox,
sat down on the bed opposite him, and began to remove her hairpins.
He eyed her brush, a heavy silver thing. “In fact, if you feel
inclined to throw that at me, let me remind you right now that I am
a wounded veteran and your husband.”

She laughed and began to brush her
hair. “I cannot really imagine anything worse than this deception
that we have begun for the benefit of your mother’s feelings and
your aunt’s fortune. But, then, I have been told for years that I
am not creative.”

“
You are extremely creative,” he
said. “Do keep a tight grip on that hairbrush.”

He put on his shirt and buttoned it,
looking about for his neck cloth. “Lydia, I blame it on Sir
Percy.”

“
Why not? So far you have blamed
everything on that singular gentleman. What could be worse than the
tale you hatched already?”

He thought a moment, as though
attempting to figure out how to begin. She watched him with growing
suspicion. I am dealing with an inventive, intelligent man who is
far more creative than I will ever be, she thought. Quite possibly
my mission in life will be to rein him in—provided, she added
hastily to herself, that I choose to continue this unusual
marriage.

“
Confess it, sir. I do not wear well
with suspense.”

To her amusement, he got up and went
to sit farther away in the window seat. “Percy really threw himself
into his correspondence with my mother and aunt,” he began as he
examined his fingernails. “Beyond sherry, it was his chief source
of amusement. I remember one rather gushing letter where, as
Delightful ….”

“
Oh, that name,” she
interrupted.

“
Ah, yes … he declared his love
to me in quite resounding phrases. I intercepted that one in time,
and reminded him that it was going to two ladies.” He sighed again
and slapped his hands on his knees. “There’s no way to say this
except to tell you right out …. Lydia, in the gospel according
to Sir Percy, after nine months and some two weeks of wedded bliss,
Delightful and yours truly had a baby.”

Her jaw dropped. She stared at him.
He looked back hopefully. “What could I do? He didn’t tell me about
that letter until after I returned from court-martial duty in
Lisbon, and by then it was long sent. Oh, my dear, do close your
mouth at least!”

“
You cannot be serious!” she gasped,
when she could speak.

“
Would I
lie
about that?” He
shook his head. “Percy assured me that it was the logical step,
considering how deep my love was for Delightful.”

“
If you say that name again, I
am
going to thrash you,” she threatened him. She got off the
bed and came toward him. He may have been taller than she and well
beyond her weight, even in his convalescent state, but the major
retreated to another corner of the room. “You couldn’t possibly
have forgotten that little detail yesterday when you convinced me
to marry you! Now, be honest!”