Samantha had felt the tears sting her eyes as she’d seen the grave faces of the young officers who had carried her wounded husband home to her. Every one of them had seemed devastated, torn with genuine grief by the sight of their colonel lying so badly wounded on the makeshift stretcher.
‘We’re so sorry, Mrs Scatterby,’ each of the young men had said in turn before they’d left. ‘It was just bad luck. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time...caught by the blast.’
She’d raised her head to look at them proudly through her unshed tears. She was a beautiful young woman, her hair like pale silk, and her eyes a shade of blue that defied description. Much younger than her wounded husband, she looked vulnerable and in need of a protective shoulder—and not a man there would have refused it had she asked, but she was too proud.
‘I shall not give up,’ she said. ‘He’s still alive. I’ll take him home to England and I’ll nurse him back to health.’
She saw the pity in their eyes, but refused to give way to her grief until they had all gone. Her dearest Percy was clinging to life despite the wounds he’d received in the heat of battle. The doctor visited, taking his time in examining his patient, before turning to her with a shake of the head.
‘I can patch up his wounds, but he has been damaged internally and that I cannot heal. Even if he survives for a few weeks I doubt he will ever be strong again. The best you can do for him is to take him home to an English country house with a garden and care for him until the end. I fear you will find it a trying task for he will be an invalid and in pain.’
‘He took me in when I had nothing,’ Samantha told him proudly. ‘I will care for him while he has breath in his body.’
‘He loved you very much. We all thought him a lucky man, Mrs Scatterby. I have no doubt that if anyone can pull him through it will be you.’
Samantha thanked him.
For some weeks Percy was too ill to move, but then, as the wounds to his leg and shoulder healed, he seemed to improve, though often he was caught by a racking cough that made it difficult for him to breathe.
His devoted wife hardly left his side. During the sea voyage from Spain she spent most of the crossing in their cabin, tenderly caring for his needs. Kind and considerate young officers designated as their escort took them to a pleasant country house. The house had been provided by one of their number and Samantha was assured that she and the Colonel were welcome to stay for as long as they wished.
Once she and Percy were settled, the young men came to take their leave of her and return to the fighting. Samantha thanked them all for their kindness.
‘If ever you need anything,’ one of the officers said. He was the quiet one amongst them, strong and dark-haired, his face attractive rather than handsome with a firm chin that spoke of determination. ‘Just write to me, Sam. I shall come as soon as I can and, whatever you need, I shall do my best for you.’
‘That is very kind of you, Brock,’ she said, and smiled, feeling pleased that he had used her name. They had all been in the habit of calling her by her name on the Peninsula, but since Percy’s wounding it seemed they were all so polite and distant. ‘I do not know what I should have done had you not all been so very kind.’
‘He was our colonel,’ one of them said. ‘We all thought the world of him, Mrs Scatterby—and if ever you should need anything, you have only to ask. We are at your command.’
Samantha thanked them and one by one they took their leave. All save one, who stayed behind to tell her that the house was hers for as long as she wished.
‘My parents live only twenty miles away. If you need anything...anything at all...’
‘Thank you,’ she whispered, emotion almost choking her because he could never know what his kindness meant to her. ‘I do not know what I should have done without your help.’
Suddenly Samantha could bear her grief no longer, perhaps because he was leaving her and she did not know how she could have borne these past weeks without his comforting presence. The tears trickled silently down her cheeks, in her eyes a look of mute appeal that drew a response from the handsome young officer.
‘Sam, my dearest love,’ he said thickly, the words wrenched from him almost reluctantly, because they were both aware of the beloved man lying on his sickbed upstairs, yet both knew that this had been inevitable. Brock reached for her, drawing her close against him, his mouth seeking hers in a tender and yet passionate kiss that made her cling to him desperately. ‘I adore you, want you so much. You know, have known, haven’t you?’
For a moment the naked truth was in her eyes, the longing and need that she had suppressed all these months since she’d first known that she’d fallen in love with one of her husband’s men. She felt that he wanted her, loved her in return, and yet there was a barrier there between them. Samantha wasn’t sure what had kept them from speaking of their love before this; perhaps duty on her part, and a genuine affection for Percy, for she did love her husband, but it was a gentle, grateful love and not this wild passion that was now roaring through her body, setting her aflame with need and desire.
She longed to confess her love, to speak of a future when they could be together, but that would be disloyal to the man who trusted them both. Suddenly, she realised that she had been on the verge of giving herself to the man she loved more than she could ever have dreamed and her darling Percy was lying upstairs in constant pain, needing her, trusting her. A surge of revulsion swept through her at her own behaviour. How could she treat the man who had done so much for her so despicably?
‘I know we must wait, but one day...’ Brock began, but she thrust him away, shaking her head, the horror of what she was doing flooding through her.
‘No, we must not even think such a thing. We must think of Percy. He trusts us, Brock. He trusts us. This is wrong, wicked.’
Brock drew back, looking at her as he saw the horror and revulsion in her eyes, and recoiled from it, a slash of pain in his face so terrible that it made Samantha want to recall her words, but she could only turn away in confusion.
‘I shall not call again before I return to the regiment,’ he said, ‘but if you need anything go to my father. He will help you.’
Her heart was breaking as she struggled with the confusion of her feelings, and she turned, but he was walking away, leaving her, and she did not have the strength to call him back.
Samantha was left alone and she thought her heart would break, but she did not know then that there was worse to come. That the pain she felt now would increase tenfold and stay with her for ever.