With This Ring (8 page)

“
Yes, sir,” she said as she removed
her bonnet and set it on the altar. “And where can I reach you, if
this happens?”

“
Why, at Horse Guards, naturally!”
he said, as though surprised. “Someone has to irritate those
supercilious sons of bitches who would make water if they ever had
to make war.” He came closer to the major and touched his arm. “Be
easy, laddie, and heal,” he said, his voice almost compassionate.
“It wasn’t a bad bargain.”

Another nod, and General Thomas
Picton was gone, working his way back down another aisle. Reed
shook his head. “He’s a scoundrel.”

“
Precisely what he said about you,
sir.” She shook out the apron she had carried into the church and
put it on, cinching it firmly at her waist. “Now, then, Major,
since you purchased probably every flower in London and worked a
great scheme on my mother, what will you have me do?”

“
Were they pretty?” he asked as he
struggled to sit up.

She took him by the arm to help. “I
never had flowers before.”

He stared at her. “I find that hard
to believe.”

“
It’s true,” she allowed, dabbing at
the sweat on his face from the simple exertion of sitting up.
“Unlike you—according to General Picton—I never lie, cheat, or
steal.”

The major flinched. “If I could have
sent someone else to retrieve you, I would have! A man has no
secrets with Picton. Sit down a moment, Miss Perkins.” He moved his
legs. “No, right here, please.”

Of course it was not proper, but the
nearest stool was occupied by a soldier in the middle of a dressing
change. “Very well, sir,” she said as she sat on his cot and folded
her hands in her lap.

She had not been this close to him
before, and the morning light that streamed in through the
clerestory windows showed her a fine-looking man, despite his
ragged hair, whiskery chin, and hospital pallor. His hair was a
marvelous chestnut color and his eyes brown like her own. His nose
was almost too straight and gave him a severe appearance
intensified by his thin lips. His cheeks were on the thin side,
too, and she couldn’t decide if that was due to his hospital stay
or the unreliability of meals in Wellington’s army. He had the look
of a man who would fill out nicely, once he had the opportunity to
put his legs under his own table again.

He wore a nightshirt that looked
soft with many washings. He sat leaning forward to take the strain
off his back, his knees up, his arms draped gracefully over his
knees. What wonderful hands, she thought, with long fingers and
veins that looked almost chiseled. Too bad his fingers were
discolored.

The major noticed the direction of
her gaze, and held out a hand to her, palm up. “I have played so
many years with gunpowder that it is engraved upon me, Miss
Perkins. I suppose it will wear off someday.” He wiggled his
fingers. “At least they’re all present and accounted for. I’ve been
a lucky son of the guns.”

“
Luck or skill, sir?” she asked.
“General Picton mentioned your ability.”

He made a face, tried to sit up
straighter, then leaned forward again. “I’m sorry to subject you to
his company for a prolonged interval, but he owes me favors, and I
knew that he could accomplish my goal.”

“
Your goal?” she asked.

He looked her right in the eyes, his
glance never wavering. “The goal of getting you out of that house
and back here to work, Miss Perkins.”

She looked away in embarrassment. “I
cannot imagine what Corporal Davies told you.”

“
He said it was not a pretty sight.”
He touched her arm. “I blame myself. I apologize for keeping you so
long here yesterday. I am sorry they were so angry, and took it out
on you.”

“
No one compelled me to stay, sir,”
she replied, her voice equally quiet. “It was the first time in my
life that I felt useful.” She paused. I should say nothing more. I
do not know this man. She looked at him, and under the whiskers,
the hair, the pain, the pallor, was an expression so kind that it
compelled her to continue, even before she was aware of it. “I was
doing something for myself, instead of fetching and mending for
Kitty, or staying away from Mama’s tongue,” she explained.
“It … it was nice to be wanted and needed, even if only for an
afternoon.” How bald that sounds, she thought, horrified with
herself. And to think I just said it to a total
stranger.

The major was silent, and she knew
she had overstepped her bounds. Perhaps Mama is right, she thought
as she got up from his cot. Perhaps I am a stupid and gawky woman
who will always be a burden and an embarrassment to her
family.

“
I’m sorry, Major Reed,” she said,
not able to look him in the eyes. “Mama tells me every day that I
am a trial. Tell me what it is you wish me to do, and I’ll leave
you in peace.”

“
I
am
in peace, Miss
Perkins,” he said quickly. “You’re no trial. You could sit here all
day and talk to me, but that would irritate my men, who have taken
rather a fancy to you.”

“
To me?” she asked in
amazement.

“
If I am to believe their comments,
Miss Perkins. I propose that you wash their faces and shave them.
We’re all tired of being dirty. It will be as good as medicine. And
if you were to talk to them, too. Ah, bliss.”

“
But … but I’ve never ….”
She stopped. He gives me something to do, and I am a pain about
it.

“
Shaved a man? Talked to one? My
dear, you may practice on me.” He glanced toward the altar, and she
noticed a shabby campaign trunk with the initials SER. “My kit
finally arrived. Heaven knows where it was.”

“
What does the E stand for?” she
asked without thinking.

“
Elliott. Open it, Miss Perkins. You
will find my shaving gear in a leather bag. If you will overlook
the quantity of dirty laundry, I will overlook your supremely silly
relatives.”

She frowned at him, and he gazed
back with a virtuous expression. “You do not know them, sir. How
can you say they are silly?”

“
Anyone who thinks you are a trial
is silly,” he declared. “Orderly! Bring us some hot water. Miss
Perkins, I am yours to practice upon. If I should begin to bleed,
do staunch it. I haven’t come this far to perish at the hands of a
pretty barber.”

“
M
ajor, I
am far from pretty,” she told him as she went to his campaign
trunk, kneeling down to open it.

“
That’s true,” he agreed, “but if I
said you were beautiful ….”

“… 
that would be a bigger
falsehood,” she interrupted, lifting up a layer of shirts stained
with sweat and gunpowder.

He laughed, and she looked at him in
surprise. “My men think you are an angel, and protestations aside,
I did hear the word beautiful once or twice.”

“
They were delirious,” she
retorted.

“
Not noticeably,” he replied. “I’ve
always considered them to be observant and factual, but then, I
have only known them through six years of close
company.”

How odd, she thought, not daring to
make another comment. She found the shaving kit under a handful of
letters, plus a bottle of Spanish cologne.

“
Oh, that, too,” he said. “I’ll
smell divine.”

She smiled at him.
“Perhaps.”

“
Miss Perkins, there is a rumor that
an attempt is being made to locate tin tubs from somewhere. If that
is the case, then the whole lot of us will be much more
pleasant.”

She brought the shaving kit and
cologne to the major’s cot. “You are an officer. Can you not find
better accommodations than this wretched old church?”

“
I can,” he agreed, “except for this
one, niggling detail. My dear, I have shared the vicissitudes of
war with my battery. We have slept together under caissons, drunk
bloody water from empty shells, and eaten our own tired horses. I
cannot leave them until they are settled.”

She looked around the lady chapel,
which was not crowded with officers. “Others can, it appears,” she
murmured.

He handed her his shaving soap and
brush, and a pair of scissors. “I am not other
officers.”

She could readily believe it. “Now,
sir, I think we need a towel.”

“
None in sight. I used my last one
at Toulouse on my poor gunnery sergeant. You recall him from
yesterday, I believe.”

She did. “Then, I will use one of
your old shirts.” She rummaged in his trunk again and found one
with frilly cuffs that had no powder ground into it. She tied it
carefully around his neck. “I think you will have to sit
straighter, if you can, sir,” she said. “A chair would be best, but
we have none.”

“
And besides that, you would have to
endure the sight of my hairy legs, and other accessories,” he said
as he stropped his razor. “You may blame General
Picton.”

Is there anything you won’t say? she
thought in embarrassment. “We will manage,” she said when she
composed herself. She smiled her thanks to the orderly who brought
hot water in a basin, secretly enjoying the way he blushed and
stumbled over his feet when he hurried from the lady chapel. “Now,
sir?”

With the scissors, she cut his
weeks-old beard, then lathered his face and set to work. He did not
bleed, beyond a nick beside his nose that she stopped with a bit of
cotton wadding. She grazed a small mole she did not see at his
temple hairline, and he only commented that his regular barber—dead
at Toulouse—used to do that all the time.

He had to remind her once or twice
that she needed to carry on some conversation, particularly since
he was supposed to hold his face still. After several starts and
stops, she told him about home in Devon, and their trip to London
to find a suitable husband for Kitty, who was beautiful beyond
words and entirely too gorgeous to waste on a red-faced, paunchy
squire, or a mere vicar. She had never talked so much before, and
she knew she was telling more than Mama would approve of, but for
some reason unknown to her, she knew he did not mind. Nor would he
store it up to pass it on. How do I know that? she asked herself. I
just know it.

“
Mama says if I am lucky, I might
find a vicar, or perhaps a widower who is not too choosy,” she said
as she concentrated on that spot beside the major’s mouth, where he
had, drat it all, another mole. “Oh, do hold still,” she ordered as
she navigated the razor around the obstacle. “I do not know why you
are so grim about the mouth. My job would be less onerous if you
would relax. I have not killed you yet.”

“
Perhaps it is because I do not
precisely understand why your mother has such a low opinion of you,
my dear,” he said, then tilted his head so she had a better view of
the problem mole.

‘
Thank you. Sir, I am not beautiful
enough for Mama to bother with,” she concluded in a matter-of-fact
voice, then stepped back. “I believe you are done, Major.” She
wiped the soap off his face, admiring her handiwork.

To her amazement, she heard applause
behind her and whirled around to see all of the major’s men who
could walk standing or sitting at the entrance to the lady chapel.
She blushed and frowned at Major Reed. “Sir! You could see them!
Why did you not mention that my first-ever barbering had an
audience?”

“
Perhaps I wanted witnesses, in case
you slit my throat, Miss Perkins! Well, lads, will I
do?”

They cheered this time, which
brought over the surgeon and one of the aproned matrons, who shooed
them back to their cots. “You’re next, lads,” he called after them.
“Mind you, behave yourselves!”

She laughed and cleaned his razor,
then handed it back for him to strop again. He obliged her, then
ran his hand over his face and sighed with contentment, to her
amusement. “I am amazed what a difference this makes in my outlook.
Anything is possible now. Perhaps I will even be able to walk
upright soon, and not drag my knuckles like an ape.”

“
You will if you stay in bed and
mind yourself,” Lydia admonished him. She was still smiling as she
patted his face with cologne, an overpowering lemon fragrance that
no Englishman except a soldier would wear, and even then only on a
foreign shore.

He sniffed it. “Better and better,
Miss Perkins. I almost cannot smell myself now. Let us devoutly
pray that the tin tub rumor is true, or I’ll be out of my stash of
Limon de Aranjuez much too soon, and you will run in
terror.”

“
You may be out of it sooner than
you think, sir,” she replied as she stoppered the bottle. “I intend
to use it on your men, too.”

“
Madam, it is two quid a bottle!” he
protested.

“
Thank goodness that you get a
major’s pay,” she declared as she held it out of his reach and
gathered up his shaving gear. “Now, take a nap and behave
yourself.”

There were ten wounded men in
Battery B, and she took her time with each one, shaving him, and
chatting such endless trivialities that she knew she was related to
Kitty. The ones who were too broken to shave, she sat with, holding
their hands if they had hands, or just resting her own hand on
their chests when they did not. She knew she was boring them with
her homely stories of Devon and the seashore, but no one objected.
When she finished with Battery B’s wounded, she continued down the
next row, tending to the shattered men as best she
could.