With This Ring Part 1

With This Ring.

Carla Kelly.

To Denise and Tisha Grayson, friends and sisters.

"With this ring I thee wed, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow."

-The Book of Common Prayer.

Author's Note.

General Thomas Picton, who found his way into this narrative, was a prominent officer who served ably as one of Sir Arthur Wellesley's lieutenants during the Peninsular War (1808-1814). With his brother officers-Crauford, Beresford, Pakenham, Hill, and Ponsonby-General Picton fought the length and breadth of Portugal and Spain in the struggle that ended with the Victory of Toulouse and Napoleon's exile to Elba in 1814. Picton was brilliant, eccentric, and well-known for his breathtaking profanity in a profane army. No sight was more familiar than General Picton at the head of his beloved Third Division, wearing his famous broad-brimmed top hat (he suffered from eye strain).

Picton's errors in the fog of battle that was Toulouse in no way diminished his abilities and talents. He went into battle a year later at Mont St. Jean, and was killed instantly by a bullet through his top hat during the long afternoon that was Waterloo, June 18, 1815.

General Picton plays only a small role in my story. I hope I have done him the justice he deserves. The liberties I have taken with him are those of an admirer.

Prologue.

"Percy, do you know what I like best about Englishwomen?" Major Sam Reed held his hand over his bishop, then moved it three squares. The lady chapel was cold, so he tugged his overcoat higher around his shoulders, wincing at the pain.

"G.o.d save us, Sam, but after all these years, you are still a terrible player." Lieutenant Percy Wilkins moved his knight and eliminated Reed's bishop with one swipe. "Check. No, tell me what is so fine about Englishwomen. It has been too many years. And for the Lord's sake, hold still. If you open that wound again, I'm not going to feel even a little sorry for you, sir."

Reed knew he didn't mean it, because his second-in-command got off his cot and peered under the overcoat. Apparently satisfied, Sir Percy resumed his position on his major's cot. "As for me, Sam, I have not seen an Englishwoman in so long that I wouldn't recognize one if she bit me on the b.u.t.tock."

"You wish." Sam contemplated his bishop on Sir Percy's side of the board, not so much of a board as a campaign tablecloth blocked and stained red and black. "I like the way women here smell, like tea cakes or sugared violets." He gestured with the silver thimble that served as a rook. "Look you now: they go up and down the rows, dispensing a sip of water here, a pat on the head there. They look like they smell good, think on. D'ye think they will come to us?" He moved his rook out a square.

Sir Percy looked in the direction Sam indicated, turned back to the board, and moved his queen. "Check and mate. They won't come over here because we look too able." He lowered his voice. "Now, if you would lie back and gasp a little like this poor captain next to you, and maybe grab your belly .... Belly wounds are good. They'll be at your side in a wink." He grinned. "And gone about as fast."

Sam sighed and gathered up the chess pieces. He knotted them in one corner of the tablecloth and leaned back against the wall. "I do not need Society ladies to feel sorry for me."

"Actually, sir, I believe you do. Surely you cannot have forgotten your predicament?"

Sam glared at his lieutenant. "How could I?"

"Indeed you could not," Sir Percy agreed, his serenity an added irritation to Sam. "You need a wife in the worst way." He nodded in the direction of the ladies. "Maybe these sightseers might know of a woman ...."

The major interrupted him. "She has to be a lady. That's one of the terms."

"I know the terms," Sir Percy reminded him. He sniffed the air around Sam. "More to the point now, you need to locate a lady with no sense of smell, who is impervious to rude noises, and who wouldn't mind a man who looks like a troll afraid of a barber."

"I can bathe, and I can shave, and when my back heals, I can stand up straight!" Sam said with some energy. And I am being testy toward the one who has done so much for me, he thought. Whether for good or bad, who can tell? Careful not to move fast, he held out his hand to his lieutenant. "Percy, I have never adequately thanked you for writing all those letters to my mother. What a lovely wife you gave me through those letters."

Percy laughed and shook Sam's hand. "I enjoyed it! Only think how my penmans.h.i.+p improved, and how it broke the whole battery's tedium." His face grew serious again. "I only hope I have not overdone the matter. Your mama is expecting you to arrive with a paragon of virtuous, lovely womanhood. And of course, there is that other matter." He paused, and Sam sighed. "Don't know what I was thinking, sir. Call it poetic license."

"Ah, yes, the other matter." Sam started to speak, thought better of it, then waited until he was calm. "Well, Percy, don't let me keep you. I know that your mama is eager to see your sorry self again."

His lieutenant got up from his cot and stood looking at him for a long moment. "I'll miss the guns, sir. Do stop at Quavers on your way north." Sir Percy grinned. "With a wife."

"Don't remind me!"

Through the portal that opened onto the larger chapel, Sam watched his lieutenant leave. He smiled when Percy stopped by the cots of their men, those stalwarts of the battery wounded in the last battle at Toulouse that sent Napoleon to a change of address to Elba. You've learned, lad, he thought, remembering Lieutenant Sir Percy Wilkin's arrival two years ago before Badajoz-a baptism I would wish on no greeny, he thought fervently, and not for the first time. There was a time when these heroes were objects of the lower cla.s.s, eh, Percy? he reflected as his lieutenant spent a long time before the cot of their master sergeant. And then when your sergeant saves your aristocratic but inexperienced hide from one or two gross errors that artillerymen don't want to make-ah, it's a different story.

He leaned back against the wall again, careful of himself, and thought about his own sergeant, blown into froth at Talavera, and the corporals and privates whose names had faded, if not the remembrance of their gallantry under fire. He tried to lean against the wound, winced, and thought better of it. If I am to be invalided home, I had better heal quickly, he thought. This church is already becoming tiresome indeed, and Lord knows I have some heavy ground to get over lightly, as Old Nosey would say.

Face it, Sam, he told himself. You hate to ruin your record of no wounds at all during this whole long, dreadful war. It's rough to peac.o.c.k about when you're hard put to stand up straight. At least your knuckles do not drag on the ground. The major drew up his knees and leaned forward on them, finding some measure of relief in that position. It was a comfort to know that the war was over.

Except. He rested in his chin on his knees and watched the ladies moving slowly up and down the ranks of the wounded, sequestered here in this drafty London church, chilly inside while May's hawthorn bloomed outside. "I need one of those in just about the worst way," he said out loud.

"Eh?" asked the captain on the next cot.

"One of those ladies," he repeated. The captain had a gut wound and wouldn't live through the week. Sam knew he could tell him anything. "I need a wife right now."

"Oh, you artillerymen," the captain murmured. "Wasn't it enough to wench through Spain?"

With some effort, Sam stood up, then leaned over and wiped the man's forehead, which glistened with the sweat of infection. "It's a long story, lad. I promised my mother a wife several years ago in a weak moment ...."

"... Drunk?" the captain sympathized.

"Of course! Why else would I do that? I wrote her that I was married to a daughter of the regiment." He sat down, more tired from that small task than he cared to admit.

"What were you thinking?" the captain murmured.

"Probably that I would be dead before the war ended, so what difference did it make what I told her?" Sam retorted. "What does any of us think during warfare?"

"That's bad."

"It's worse. My lieutenant got into the spirit of the thing, and a year later, wrote my mother that my wife and I had a child and she was a grandmama!"

There was no comment from the adjoining cot. Good G.o.d, I hope the shock of that didn't kill the poor man right now, the major thought, as he got up slowly, and leaned over the captain again. "Are you all right?"

After a long time, the man opened his eyes. His mouth creased into a smile, and his eyes were bright with both fever and merriment.

"That is the funniest thing I have ever heard, Major," the captain said. "I'm trying to figure out how to laugh without hurting everything inside me."

"So glad you're amused," Sam said as he wiped the man's forehead again. "Before I get home to Hadrian's Wall, it either has to be marriage or a double murder, and I am not inclined toward murder, even of the nonexistent."

The man was silent again, even as his grin widened. "Good luck, Major. You'll need it even more where you're going, than I will where I am bound."

"You're already confessed and shriven?" Sam asked, his voice gentle. "You're ready for what is ahead?"

The captain nodded, his eyes still merry. "More than you are, Major, more than you are. If G.o.d Almighty doesn't strike you dead for what I think you are about to attempt, some young lady will. I, on the other hand, need merely face my maker."

Major Reed lay back down on his cot. Put that way, I am in for an interesting time of it, he thought. He watched the ladies again until they loomed larger and larger and stepped into his dreams. When he woke, the cot next to his was empty, and the ladies were gone. His dilemma, however, remained.

Chapter One.

"Lydia, I vow if you do not come quickly, Kitty will go into deep spasms! She will never find a duke or a marquis, and we will all be ruined!"

"Yes, Mama. At once, Mama."

It was impossible to ignore Mama, even heard through two closed doors. Lydia closed her book, but did not move from her perch in the window seat. She glanced at the clock. "I wonder, Kitty, what has precipitated this latest crisis, the third of the morning?" she asked out loud. "Could it be that your curling rod is misplaced, and because this is not Imperial Rome, you cannot beat your maid into a coma? Or perhaps you cannot find the ribbon we wasted four hours picking out yesterday. Yes, I am certain that is the problem."

"Lydia!"

Still she did not leave her comfortable spot. There was suddenly something so daunting about facing Kitty and Mama at the same time, both of them upset, both of them convinced that nothing could be more important than their needs. Not for the first time since their arrival a month ago from Devon did she kick herself for thinking for even one moment that life would be different here on Holly Street.

I have the vast misfortune to be an optimist in a family where one crisis follows another like waves on a beach, she considered. I even thought that London might be fun. Mama is right; I am a fool.

"Courage," she muttered as she stood up, took one last look out the window at all the activity in the street below, and went slowly down the hall. She imagined the scene even before she opened the door. Kitty would be in tears-not ordinary tears, mind you, but tears that clung to her long eyelashes like dew on rose petals. Her lower lip would be quivering, and her eyes would be stormy with disappointment. Lydia knew from a lifetime of experience that if she waited just one second too long to appear, Kitty would begin to breathe in short gasps, a prelude to towering, monumental hysteria.

"And we can't have that," she murmured as she took a deep breath of her own and opened the door.

Her younger sister Kitty stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by a morning's worth of dresses tried on, rejected, and left to wrinkle on the floor. Her arms were stiff by her sides, but she had not quite reached that state of irritation that led to the ruin of one's entire day.

"Yes, my dear?" she asked quietly as she picked up a discarded dress and shook it as she wanted to shake her sister.

Kitty regarded her with beautiful, mournful eyes, eyes of the sky in early evening, violet eyes already the subject of innumerable dithyrambs from besotted poets in Devon too young to know better. She took a deep breath and a sob-the perfect sob-caught in her throat. "I cannot find the ribbon, Lyddy!"

"I know that you have hidden it to do poor, poor Kitty mischief! I was telling your father only this morning that you are an unnatural child and should have been left behind!"

On a hillside like the Greeks? In Devon? Then, who would fetch and carry and smooth over everyone's spasms and indignations? Lydia thought as she turned to regard her mother. "Mama, I would never," she said quietly. "Kitty, remember that we put it in the top drawer of your bureau so you would not forget?" She went to the drawer, pulled out the length of ribbon, and handed it to her sister.

Kitty clutched the ribbon to her heaving breast, shed a few becoming tears of relief, then took a good look at the object of her distracted search. "I thought it was darker, sister," she said accusingly. She held it out at arm's length, as though it would sink its fangs into her perfect arm. "It won't do. Mama, make her take it back and choose me another."

No, Lydia thought, in that quiet place inside her mind that was hers alone. I will not return that stupid ribbon and drag myself through three more hours of shops to agonize over the merits of one color over another. I will not. "Whatever you wish, Mama," she said.

Mama, no stranger to tragedy herself, threw herself into a chair and stared at her elder daughter. "Lydia, what I wish is that you would mind the insincerity of your tones. No wonder you are twenty-two and still single." She patted her heart, that organ of affection. "With notably few exceptions, I can trace every one of my palpitations to your intransigence."

These are heavy doings, Lydia told herself as she folded the ribbon. The day is so beautiful that I do not have the strength for Mama's cardiac insufficiencies and my role in them. "I will be happy to return the ribbon, Mama." It sounded sincere to her. She meant it sincerely-anything to stave off another lecture, more accusations, and perhaps the back of Mama's hand for punctuation.

After a long pause, long enough for Lydia to feel the familiar gnawing in her stomach, Mama nodded. "Very well." She smiled at her other daughter. "Kitty, love, be a dear and step aside so Lydia can pick up the rest of your frocks and return them to the dressing room. Sit here, my dear." She patted the cus.h.i.+on beside her. "I have something of interest for you, and I suppose, for Lydia, too, if she can do two things at once!"

She and Kitty put their blond heads together and laughed. Lydia knew better than to look at either of them. That would only mean more laughter at her expense. It is one of the seven wonders of the world that I have any pride left at all, she thought as she carried the dresses into the next room where Kitty's maid cowered. "Best iron them quickly," she whispered as she shut the door.

"As I was walking this morning, I overheard dear Lady Walsingham remark that it was all the rage for young women of fas.h.i.+on and sense to go to St. Barnabas."

Kitty gave her a blank stare. "Mama, it is not Sunday," she said.

Mama laughed and touched Kitty under the chin. "You are so amusing!"

Thank goodness I did not say that, Lydia considered as she edged herself into a chair. Mama would have called me a dolt and tugged at my hair.

"A number of wounded soldiers are lodged there right now. Some battle or other ...."

"Toulouse, Mama," Lydia said without thinking. "It has been in all the papers, and now the war is ov-" Mama glared at her, and she was silent.

"One battle is very much like another, and it is amazingly ill-bred to claim knowledge of any of them," Mama declared, dismissing most of history in a single sentence. "The import is this: The better sort are going to St. Barnabas to minister to the soldiers."

"Good G.o.d, Mama, you cannot be serious!" Kitty exclaimed. "We have to touch them?"

"Oh, no, dear, no," Mama soothed, taking Kitty's hands in hers to stop their agitated motion. "I think you merely walk up and down and look sympathetic. Possibly cluck your tongue, but surely nothing more. I have it on good authority that it is the high kick of fas.h.i.+on right now."

That will be onerous, indeed, Lydia considered. No wonder Kitty is concerned. I do not think Kitty understands the ramifications of sympathy, particularly since such an emotion requires the acknowledgment of others.

Kitty shuddered and drew closer into the circle of her mother's arms. "But, Mama, suppose one of them reaches out to touch me?"

They wouldn't dare, Lydia thought, then turned her head to cough so Mama would not see her smile.

Mama drew herself up straight again. "My dearest, that is why nature intended for young ladies of fas.h.i.+on to carry parasols. You can beat them off!"

Oh, I like that, Lydia told herself. So much philanthropy all at once must be nipped in the bud. Probably it is a good thing that soldiers are used to harsh living, particularly if they run afoul of the "better sort," as Mama puts it.

"But why, Mama, why do we have to do this?" Kitty asked as the storm warnings rose in her eyes again.

Mama regarded Kitty sorrowfully. "Because, my precious kitten, your father-drat his timid soul-never could bring himself to visit London, or even pursue acquaintances beyond the borders of our own district!" She rose suddenly and took a turn about the room, her agitation unmistakable. "We have money enough, but no one knows us! We are living in a rented house on the fringe of the best area, and your father makes no push to renew old friends.h.i.+ps."

And if I have told him once I have told him a thousand times, Kitty love, you are too beautiful to waste on a red-faced squire's son in Devon, Lydia thought as she watched her mother take another turn about the room. Isn't that what you have always said next, Mama? See? I have memorized it.

She knew what would follow that speech, so she tried to make herself smaller in the chair. "... Too beautiful to waste on a red-faced squire's son in Devon," Mama was saying. Lydia winced as Mama directed her attention to her. "Blame Lydia, if this exercise makes you uncomfortable," she said to Kitty. "If Lydia had been even slightly less plain, she could have smoothed the way for you! As it is, you must exert yourself and be seen where it will do you the most good."

"But a church with wounded soldiers? Oh, Mama!"

Kitty, you are fast approaching the limits of Mama's endurance, Lydia thought as she watched her mother and sister. Lips in a thin line, eyes narrowing ... I know the signs. Kitty, are you really so dense that you never figured them out? Of course, the wrath comes down less strenuously on you, because you are beautiful, where I am not.

"It is an excellent plan," Mama was saying now, her tone placating. "You and Lydia will wait outside the church in our carriage until you see young ladies and gentlemen going inside. Join their party. Tag along behind them." She took Kitty by the shoulders and gave her a little shake. "Make something of this opportunity!"