Charlotte crossed to the window and pulled back the curtain, letting in what light she could, given the window opened up directly onto another building.
From the opposite corner, William whined in protest, throwing an arm over his face. The sight of him, huddled in the corner in yesterday’s clothes with a blanket haphazardly drawn over his chest, caused a now-familiar wrench of her heart.
“Did you fall out of bed or could you not get in it?” she asked as she made her way to him. As she passed the bed, she saw the source of the vomit smell. It covered the pillows and mattress on one side.
Charlotte sat on her haunches in front of him. “Brother?” She put a hand under his chin, raising it so Will’s gaze met hers. His eyes were unfocused. Beside him was an empty bottle of whiskey. But this wasn’t adrunkunfocused gaze—she’d seen him in his cups so often when they were younger that she knew what drunk Will looked like. She glanced up at the table in the room and at the almost-empty bottle of laudanum sitting next to a completely empty bottle of whiskey and sighed.
“The doctor told you not to mix the laudanum with alcohol, darling. It’s not good for you.” She didn’t know where he’d gotten the whiskey from. Thomas had been under strict instructions not to buy William any drink, no matter how much he begged. But clearly, with the private gone, Will had gathered himself together enough to leave the room in search of it. Perhaps that was a good thing. At least he’d attempted walking with the cane she’d brought him yesterday.
“Come on, let’s get you up.” She was still struggling to lift William’s deadweight when Thomas entered. He immediately joined her, wrapping his arms around Will’s chest to drag him into an upright position. He looked at Will’s slack countenance and then to Charlotte, his eyes wide with worry and regret.
“I’m sorry, m’lady. I had to sleep. The landlady said I could take the empty bed next door if I did some work for her.”
“It’s all right, Thomas. Let’s just get him to the chair.” They lugged him to the table. With deft fingers, Charlotte undid the fall of his breeches. The bandages needed to be changed daily and William had refused a nurse, so here she was. While Thomas held him upright, she tugged down her brother’s breeches—now far looser on him than they should be—and disposed of the knot around his thigh quickly. The outer bandage came off easily. The bandage that lay directly on the wound required more care.
Will hissed as she peeled it off, and he reached for the laudanum. Thomas knocked it out of Will’s grasp with an elbow.
“Bastard,” Will muttered.
Neither them reacted to his insult. He’d said the word so often in the past week, it no longer shocked her.
The bullets—at least that was what Charlotte assumed they’d been—had lodged into William’s side, his abdomen, and his upper thigh. Shrapnel had left deep cuts across his right arm. All but his leg wound were almost healed. The battlefield surgeon had done well to save Will’s life—one generally did their best for the brother of a duke—but the scars were red and jagged. He would never be his former self again. But Will’s thigh no longer festered, and beneath the stitches Charlotte could see new skin forming.
Charlotte reached up to the table and grasped the bottle of silver nitrate and a pair of tweezers. Carefully, she placed small flecks into the wound that strained against the stitches that held the skin close. Then she took a dressing that had been soaking in linseed oil and lime water and covered the wound before wrapping a fresh, dry bandage over it.
“It’s looking much better, don’t you think?” she asked Will. He didn’t respond, but she didn’t let that sway her. “I think soon you’ll be ready to go outside. Not for a walk; your leg is not yet healed enough, but Swinton could bring the phaeton tomorrow.”
She gathered the spent bandages as she spoke. “Fresh air will do you wonders. We don’t need to go to Hyde Park, but I’m sure there’s someplace by the river that isn’t frequented by people we know. The weather is dull and grey, but the rain seems to be holding off.”
As she was about to drop the bandages in Will’s trash can, her eye caught the source of the acrid smoke that hung in the room. The bin was a burnt-out mess; the sides were covered with soot, and a charred lump sat at the bottom. But the fire hadn’t consumed everything. A short length of gold braid had escaped the flames.
His uniform.
Charlotte’s throat constricted and the tears she was usually so good at holding back sprang to her eyes.What happened to him?William had refused to answer questions about his time in Burma. The few times she’d broached the topic, he’d gone white and his face had contorted in pain. Thomas had told her the bare bones of the event that caused Will’s injuries, but he’d been frustratingly tight-lipped about everything else.
She dropped the bandages into the receptacle and handed it to Thomas, who’d stripped the bed of its soaked sheets and made short work of clearing the room of all other rubbish. He nodded to her as he left to take the laundry outside.
“Is there anything else you need?” she asked her brother as she took the chair opposite him, reaching over to put a hand on his knee.
He looked up at her. “Money,” he slurred.
A wave of disappointment crashed through her. She’d wanted him to ask to come home. Or to ask that she seek out a friend of his. Or a bath. Or a decent meal. Anything that suggested he was returning to life.
She nodded and reached into her reticule, retrieving the necklace Edward had given her last year for her birthday. “Here. Ask Thomas to sell this. It should fetch enough for the two of you to buy what you need.”
She put it on the table and he immediately reached for it, gripping tight around the stones with desperate fingers.
She tried not to let that desperation affect her. “Well, let me tell you all about last night.”
She was only five minutes into sharing all the gossip she had when there was a knock at the door. Perhaps Thomas had been locked out. Perhaps he was giving the two siblings some privacy. That thoughtfulness aligned with what she knew of him.
Charlotte crossed to the door, initially swinging it wide and then stopping dead at the sight of the people on the other side. Her heart skittered and she would have slammed the door shut if one of the three men before her hadn’t put a hand across the doorframe and a foot over the threshold.
She had never seen someone so enormous in her entire life, and her brothers were big men—both well over six feet tall and toned from years of fencing. She didn’t get the impression these men used rapiers to settle a disagreement. The big one sported a large bruise across his right eye and cheekbone. The bridge of his nose was split and the hand that prevented her from closing the door had grazed knuckles.
Beside him was a shorter man, thin and reedy, with his hair slicked back in a style that mimicked men of thetonbut fell short due to the grease. Behind him was a third man, and Charlotte felt a touch calmer at the sight of him. He was the other young soldier who had been in the room the night William had arrived. Private Gray.
She smiled at him, but he didn’t return it, so she turned her attention back to the two men in front, not letting her expression dim despite how nervous they made her. “Can I help you?” she asked.
