Flo pulled a thin blanket up around the shoulders of a young soldier. The matrons at the Benevolent Pauper's Hospital of the Apostles had told him he would be released in the next day or two. The Ladies’ Society had been able to pay his way home to Yorkshire, and she had helped him write a letter to his mother warning her of his arrival.
She joined Lady Georgiana Hayden and the others in the lobby of the hospital before departing. The older women had insisted that safety of numbers made their work possible, and she had quickly realized the wisdom of traveling in groups when a man whose mind had been damaged attempted to attack one of their members.
Once in the Chadbourn carriage, Flo felt her shoulders relax. The experience had been exhausting. Across from her, Lady Georgiana seemed lost in thought. The woman had agreed to stay at Chadbourn House for a month or two and had proven to be easy company.
“They all brag about their glory,” Flo said, sick at heart. They bragged, but their pitiful state belied their words. In spite of her resentment of Will’s insistence on a companion, this morning she was enormously grateful for company.
“I suspect they must,” the older lady replied.
“Their eyes though—haunted, every one of them. The letter I wrote for Robby Porter was full of cheer, but his eyes told a different story. They’ve seen terrible things.”
Lady Georgiana’s face mirrored Flo’s own sorrow. “I suspect both seen and done things that haunt them.”
“Done?” The thought startled Flo.
“War is an ugly thing. It demands inhuman amounts of courage, and can be soul destroying.”
“You mean they may have turned coward? They bring shame home with them?” Flo asked, trying to think it through.
“Sometimes, yes. But war can strip off the veneer of civilization. Men are driven to savagery of which they didn’t know themselves capable.”
“But not all of them surely, and the war is necessary, is it not?” Flo asked. “The Corsican is a beast, and if they don’t defend us what will happen?”
“Necessary, perhaps, but the longer it goes on the more it eats at them. They see and do things they can’t talk about at home—both on the battlefield and off.”
Flo mulled that thought over for a while. Her companion’s sympathetic voice interrupted her reverie. “We’re not meant to know, and they’re not to be condemned by those of us who weren’t there.”
“No, I suspect not. Who knows what we would do in that situation? The women of Spain have suffered greatly,” Flo murmured. The papers spoke of hunger and disruption, but she could guess what undefended women on their own might face.
Lady Georgiana nodded gravely. “We can only care for them, while they heal.”
“Shame would be a terrible burden, would it not?” Flo remarked, not requiring an answer. The image of Ethan Alcott’s deeply sorrowful eyes came to her.
What had those eyes witnessed? Things he dreads his family knowing, I’ll wager.
Another thought came to her. Her sister never spoke to Flo about her marriage. Flo assumed it to be fear; now she wondered if it was shame, an even more debilitating emotion.Shame festers when hidden, she thought, and it brought Ethan Alcott to mind again.
How will we help him heal?she wondered. It didn’t occur to her to question the determination that she and Will between them would try to do just that.
She looked across the carriage, and saw the sorrow in the older woman’s face. “I’ve never known a lady to speak so honestly about war, Lady Georgiana. You must be close to someone who serves.”
The pale blue eyes opened wide. She seemed to accept Flo’s concern. “I knew someone long ago. He was a gentle soul; I worry what nine years of war have done to him. My brother—” she waved a hand— “has had no news.”
No news or none he can repeat. Lady Georgiana’s brother, the Marquess of Glenaire, was a fixture in the war office with a reputation for knowing all that could be known. Flo reached across and took the woman’s hand in sympathy, bringing a shy smile.
“Please call me Georgie. If we’re to live together for several weeks, we can’t stand on formality. May I call you Flora?”
“Flo,” she replied beaming at her new friend. “I’m so glad you’re with me.”
Alighting from the carriage at Chadbourn house, Flo made a decision. She would talk to Will about her new realization and about Ethan Alcott.
* * *
Ethan looked down the dinner table at Lady Flora’s enthusiastic face and let her joy raise his spirits. He’d argued with Will about coming to dinner at Chadbourn house, but Will convinced him a small family dinner would be just the thing to help him “remember how to be civilized.”If only he knew.
“The duchess believes, of course, that the government must act. She plans to use every social event this Season to persuade your titled peers to vote for relief,” the chit went on, as if government neglect of its soldiers was news. “That’s why Georgie is drafting pamphlets we can distribute to the papers and on the street. Isn’t she brilliant?”
The companion—sister of the Marquess of Glenaire if he understood correctly—looked uncomfortable. “Hardly that. The need is obvious,” she said. “And they are from the committee, not me.” She would do well to remain anonymous if, as he suspected, she was Sudbury’s daughter. The old duke would stand in opposition to a support bill. Her brother, a power in the war department, probably agreed with the old man—although, if he was Will’s friend, perhaps not.
