Chapter Thirty

The short sail on the Atlantic Ocean crossing the rougher waters of the English Channel to Dover was uncomfortable. Besides being wounded and in pain, many of the English combatants went through spells of mal de mer.

Leaving Dover, the walking wounded had been loaded onto covered wagons where they hunched together on wooden benches for the trip north to London. Those more seriously hurt were given a large dose of laudanum to deaden the pain and shoved into ambulances where they lay on thin straw pallets as the vehicles bounced along on the rutted roads. Pedestrians, hearing them pass by, looked away, aware the pitiful groans and moans came from dying men. Only a certain hospitals accepted those in dire straits, the badly wounded or terminably sick. Men with no hope of recovery were sent to less well-trained medical facilities to die in peace.

Griff was on the endangered list. Shrapnel had punctured one of his lungs, and he’d contracted lung fever. Ague raged through him, drenching him with sweat, and alternated with devastating bouts of tremors attacking his body with sudden, vicious chills that went on for hours. He lay, scarcely breathing, aboard the hospital ship. He was out of his head for most of the time. He didn’t eat and had nothing left to vomit up over the side of his bunk. Instead, he suffered spasmodic dry heaves, which weakened him even more.

Arriving in a London hospital, Griff was given a fifty-fifty chance for survival. He needed to fight to save himself; since there wasn’t much else the physicians could do but dose him for the fever and keep him sedated with opiates. Laudanum was highly addictive, but he was heavily dosed with it to ease the torment of his festering wound and to keep him quiet.

* * * *

Griff’s mind wandered in a painless torpor, as if he were floating above the hospital’s thin mattress. Whatever was happening beyond the grim reality of war, death and destruction gone from his purview, he was damned relieved to be out of it.

His befogged unconscious mind took him on a journey of its own. He felt well enough to call upon Lady Dulcie, his fiancée, at her home in Surrey. His uniform was brushed and his boots polished to a mirror shine. He remembered to have his hair barbered for the occasion, because he planned to surprise her.

Everything fell into place although he had never been to Bonne Vista. He believed himself traveling in a carriage during summertime. He knew because of the searing heat sizzling his scorched skin. He was sweating and went to wipe his forehead, but he lacked a handkerchief or enough strength in his hand to do so. He remembered how Dulcie described her home during their many conversations, and he envisioned it as a red brick edifice with an imposing entrance surrounded by lush gardens. Soon the coach approached the mansion. Beds of flowering bushes and plants bloomed in his imagination. He thought back on his youth, how his own mother loved flowers. She especially loved roses, just the same as Eloise Trayhern had. He reminded himself to tell Dulcie that when he saw her.

I hope she is glad to see me. I missed her terribly while I was fighting the French. That seemed like a hundred years ago. He thought he heard himself sigh, long and deeply. Another thought led his mind on a different tangent.

Of course, I couldn’t ask her to follow the drum with me before I left London. It was a horrid and difficult life for a wife of a soldier in Wellington’s army, and Dulcie was an aristocrat. But I knew that Dulcie was courageous because of the way she stood up to her stepmother. Possibly, she would have married me then and gone to war with me, nonetheless.

The idea made him feel better, and he exhaled.

Ah, but I had other things on my mind when I left London, and now…well, now I can’t wait to hold her in my arms again. Tell her all the things I never said to her that I want to do now that I am back home again.

He was about to descend from the carriage when suddenly everything changed in an instant—evolved into a different season, a new scene playing out in front of him. There were no flowers in bloom, only large evergreens bordering the façade of the mansion. With a blink of his mind’s eye it seemed, he now saw a heavy snowfall covering the ground, crystal flakes still fluttering from the sky. A raw, wet wind stung his cheeks, whipped his hair, brought tears to his eyes, and sneaked beneath his tunic to freeze the marrow in his bones. The winter’s blast captured him with its chilly arms, and he shook with violent tremors. He had forgotten to wear a hat when he hopped down from the carriage. What month was this? The last time he looked, it was summertime. Then, Dulcie greeted him warmly. Where was she now?

The next thing he knew, they were in bed together. Naked. He was making love to her, kissing her, touching her silken body in places he never expected to caress again. She was murmuring his name very softly, begging him to come inside her, asking him to give her what she wanted so desperately. When she noticed his wound, the scarred depression in his lean back muscles, she had seemed to hesitate. He watched as tears filled her extraordinary eyes, recognized the pain and compassion down deep inside them.

“No, you mustn’t cry for me, love. I’ve accomplished what I meant to do to change my life. I’m on good terms with my family. My tainted name and reputation is wiped clean…and now, I only need to speak with you.”

Hidden in those dark pupils of hers, there was a flame of desire burning bright. He saw she lusted for him, wanted him as much as he wanted her. His breath accelerated; his heart thudded heavily against his ribs. She reached her arms up to hug him to her. He bent down for a passionate kiss and a sweet taste of a rosy, pert nipple awaiting his suckling. After that, he would plunge his engorged cock into her delicious, hot sheath just the way he remembered…

He wasn’t sure what happened next, why time warped into another dimension. He was back in the carriage, careening along a country road. All he knew was that he had to get to her, see her again, talk to her, make sure she was all right, embrace her if she would let him. Even now, he wasn’t certain if they were still betrothed, or if she had given him a coup de grace, and sent him packing. Everything seemed bolloxed up and vague. It lay like a thick, impenetrable mist clouding his mind, obliterating everything he knew, everything he wanted. He exhaled one more long breath and gave up fighting it. He simply couldn’t remember…

* * * *

“I think we almost lost him,” the nurse, Annie Potts said, grabbing for Griff’s wrist while frantically gesturing to the physician who had just entered the ward. She felt for the soldier’s pulse and but found it beating fast, strong enough that she managed a tiny smile. “I would have wagered a shilling that he took his final breath a moment ago.” She shook her head in amazement and tucked her patient’s hand back under the thin blanket.

“But we never can tell, can we?” Dr. Johnson replied.

“Yes, as of now, Lieutenant Spencer is very much alive.” Annie Potts ran a weary palm over her patient’s forehead. It was soaking wet with perspiration. “His skin is cool. Lawdy, I do believe he’s coming back to the land of living. Can you beat that?” She smiled up into the physician’s tired eyes.

“Give him a sponge bath and get some fluids into him. I’ll check on him later.” The physician paused. “He’ll want to thank you, you know, Annie.”

“Seeing him come back from the dead is thanks enough for me.” This time the nurse really grinned.

* * * *

Griff Spencer had returned to England the first week in November. It was the second week in November when Rand Titus came to take his friend back to his family’s town house to recuperate. The wounded soldier was shaky on his feet and as weak as a kitten. Rand’s valet, Bronson, helped Griff leave the hospital, handing him into the viscount’s comfortable carriage.

“Gadzooks, old chap, you look like the wrath of God! But, look now. Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll have you fixed up in jig time. Wait and see if I don’t!”

“Rand, I must go to Surrey. I need to see Lady Dulcie.”

“All in good time, Griff, all in good time. Get your strength back. First things first, eh? I’m sure your fiancée would throw a fit if she clapped eyes on you now the way you look.” Rand chortled, trying to keep the conversation light. “You ain’t the handsome Adonis you was when you left London, you know.”

Griff persisted. “Rand, I figured some things out while I was lying in the hospital. Things I think pertain to both my father’s death and Dulcie’s father’s death. I need to talk with her before it’s too late.”

“Too late for what? To get leg shackled? Don’t be a fool, Griff, you’ll be flat on your back again if you go gadding about until you are well. And no good for anything you have in mind. Give yourself a week here, let my cook get some food into you, then I’ll go with you if you wish to go to Surrey.”

“Rand…”

“No, clam up, chum, and sit back. We’ll be at my house in ten minutes. You’re going nowhere, hear me? Not until I say so. I have strict orders from your family. They wanted to take you in, but I insisted you’d do better staying with a friend. Meaning me.”

“Really?” Griff sounded surprised. “I can’t fathom that.”

“Well, it’s true. And by the way, I had Bronson go over your civilian clothes. The trunk you left with me. Your duds are fashionable enough to wear in a pinch, but you’re going to have put on two stone or more to fit well in them.”

“Rand…”

“You’re a hero, Griff. A damn, bloody, live hero, my friend. The Burlingtons are up in the boughs about your heroics on the Peninsula. They’re anxious to see you, talk to you, make a fuss over you, but only when you feel up to it.”

“My aunt and uncle are anxious to see me?” Griff slumped back against the velvet squabs. Finally, he thought, I’ve been accepted. He drew in a satisfied sigh.

Thank God. At last, I’m home.