He smiled wanly. “You’d think that after three years on the battlefield, I would have mastered the art of falling asleep anywhere. Not the case, unfortunately. The floor makes for an uncomfortable mattress. Especially with this.” He nodded toward his injured arm.
It was only then that Charlotte noticed the ball of clothes lumped in the corner.
“You’re sleeping here.”
The boy nodded. “Just until the captain is well enough to take care of himself. Then I’ll report to my superiors. I should’ve reported days ago—no doubt I’ll be reprimanded—but I couldn’t leave him.”
Charlotte wiped aside the hair that had been plastered to William’s sweaty forehead. “How was he hurt?” She hadn’t asked before. Previously, she’d been focused on the present rather than the past. But with Will out of the woods, she needed to know what he’d been through, even if she wasn’t sure she could stomach it.
The boy shifted from foot to foot. “There was a blast. The captain heard it and instead of retreating, he ran toward it. There were still men left in the area that he wanted to see clear. It was the second explosion that caught him.” Thomas trailed off, his eyes clouded, his face pinched as though he were reliving the battle.
Charlotte put a hand on his arm, seeking to bring him gently to the present, to safety.
He shook his head at her touch, and his eyes focused. “There was so much blood.”
Charlotte’s veins ran cold.
“We used our rifle slings as a tourniquet and wrapped his chest with Private Gray’s shirt to keep him alive until we made it to the field hospital.” Charlotte wasn’t sure he noticed the way his fingers dug into William’s bedsheets.
This boy and his compatriots had saved her brother’s life. It was a debt she’d never be able to repay. They would stay in her heart forever.
“Thank you,” she said, the words barely escaping her tightened throat. She placed her hand on his cold one and gave it a gentle, hopefully grounding squeeze.
“The captain would’ve done the same for any of us. Most officers were content to stand safely at the back and watch other men fight. The captain wasn’t like that. He was side by side in the thick of it, every time.”
Charlotte swallowed hard at the image his words brought to mind—of her sweet, funny, mischievous brother facing gunfire and death. It was a world away from the London scene he’d been accustomed to.
“What will you do now? Once Will heals and comes home?”
“I’m not sure, m’lady. I’m too injured to continue soldiering.” He gestured to the sling around his arm. “They’ll discharge me the moment I report in. And I’m not good for much else. The doc says I won’t be able to lift or carry again, which rules out most jobs. I can’t read, so I can’t go into a clerical position. There’s the Chelsea pension the army gives, but it’s a pittance. Certainly not a livable wage.”
“Can your family not support you?”
He quirked his lips. “There is no family, m’lady. That’s why I enlisted, for the promise of three meals a day and a roof over one’s head. Napoleon was dead. Who knew they would find another war to fight? Especially one so far away in a place so hellishly hot.”
The young private’s story snagged around the branches of her heart. She couldn’t imagine a life without family. Hers might be ofttimes dysfunctional—her brothers rarely got along and her mother was a cruel-hearted harpy. Her cousin, the king, had more scandals to his name than the rest of the family combined—but despite all the Shakespearean drama, she had blood.
She didn’t want to consider what it would mean to be alone in this world. “Can the army not find you work? Surely they have a responsibility to do so.”
“The army does not care what happens to you once you’re discharged, m’lady.” The young boy swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “If you’re too injured to work, and you’re too proud to beg, there are few other options.”
Charlotte looked at the boy in front of her—a young lad who had fought for his country and saved her brother’s life, a boy who could be no older than her—and imagined him sitting in a gutter, hat in hand, begging for food.
Rage writhed through her at the injustice of it. This would’ve been William’s fate if Will weren’t the brother of a duke. Regardless of the feud between her siblings, Edward would never have let William go hungry and homeless.
“I am sorry that you’re in this position,” she said to the boy. “Give me a few days. Let me see what I can arrange.” Perhaps there was a position for him at one of Edward’s estates. Simmons wasn’t in the habit of hiring disabled help, but Thomas had saved William’s life and for that the stuffy head of the household staff would find a place for him.
She only wished she could find places for all of them. She’d never thought about what happened to men when they returned from war—not even in the days after Will’s enlistment. Logically, she knew they couldn’t all come home whole, but she’d assumed that those who hadn’t would be looked after.
Instead, Thomas was standing here tending to her brother despite the anxiety he was feeling at his future prospects, knowing there was little support to come. “The Wildeforde family owes you a great debt, Private James. We will not let you be cast aside.”
The boy ducked his head, but for a brief second, she saw a flash of hope in his eyes.
“What did you say, Charlie, to make Private James blush?”
Charlotte whirled to face her brother, sagging against the mattress with relief as she saw his eyes were clear, if somewhat pinched at the edges.
She and Thomas helped him to sit upright, and she took a glass of water from the bedside and held it to his lips. Will drank heavily, quickly finishing the glass and asking for another. That was a good sign. That was a very good sign.
