A moment later
Once Captain John St. John had closed the door to his cabin, he leaned against the wooden slab and cursed softly.
Christopher Fitzsimmons was still alive!
Moving to his nightstand, St. John pulled out a bottle of brandy and poured a finger’s worth into a small glass. About to put the bottle back in the cabinet, he instead reopened it and took a quick sip.
How could the viscount have survived his bullet wound to the belly?
St. John had been there at Waterloo when the young captain had been shot by a frog, the bullet penetrating his mid-section. He remembered watching in horror as Christopher Fitzsimmons doubled-over, fell off his horse, and landed with a thud on the wet battlefield.
He was sure the man was dead before he hit the ground.
The small regiment of soldiers, part of one of the two armies of the Seventh Coalition dispatched against French troops led by Napoleon himself, had gamely continued their fight, pulling their captain’s body into the center of their circle and resuming their shooting among shouts and curses until the fire from the French had finally ceased.
St. John wasn’t there because he was in the British Army, but rather because as a Foreign Office operative, he had been dispatched with a missive for the captain.
He had been a minute too late. Probably an entire day too late when he thought about the events of that battle. Had he been able to locate Captain Fitzsimmons when he was expected to rendezvous with him the day prior, the heir to the Reardon viscountcy wouldn’t have taken a defensive position on the battlefield. He would have been on the outskirts, his band of soldiers kept at the ready but ordered not to engage unless absolutely necessary.
As the only son of Christopher Fitzsimmons, Viscount Reardon, the junior Christopher was meant to be spared. He had unknowingly inherited the viscountcy when the senior Christopher died unexpectedly a fortnight prior to the battle. St. John carried the updated orders as part of the tranche of documents he had been entrusted with as a spy.
Worse, St. John knew the younger Christopher had set his sights on a particular young lady to be his future viscountess. The second daughter of a Spanish nobleman, Lady Maria Paloma was beautiful, clever, and anxious to wed the English aristocrat.
Probably because she wanted to be free of her father.
José Antonio Arístegui de Benavides, seventh Conde of Albacete and a widower, had accepted an invitation to spend a few months at a country estate in Kent the year before. He had brought his daughter along in the hopes she might be betrothed before he returned to Spain, and, if he found a particularly well-off English widowed aristocrat in search of a husband, he was willing to remarry as a means to shore up his dwindling accounts.
St. John knew all this because he had been the one to transport them from Spain to England aboard The Fairweather.
Although St. John hadn’t been present for their introduction at a house party in Kent, reports from those in attendance said Christopher and Maria’s initial meeting was rocky at best, the young man showing more interest in her than she did in him.
A few weeks later, they met again during a soirée in London. Something had obviously changed, for it was rumored a betrothal had been arranged only a week before Christopher was dispatched to the Continent. A wedding occurred sometime before his departure.
The conde and his daughter returned to Spain, expecting to return to England when Christopher sent for her.
St. John sat on the edge of his bed and remembered how he had delayed his own return to British shores when that battle—the last of the Napoleonic Wars—ended. Knowing he had failed in his mission even as England succeeded in taking out the French forces, St. John made his way to where Lady Maria Paloma Silvestri y Arístegui de Benavides and her father were staying near Madrid to share what he had witnessed.
He would never forget the brave face Maria had displayed upon hearing the news of what had happened to Christopher. How her lower lip trembled as tears filled her eyes. How she had stood steady and tall until he had taken his leave of the count’s apartments and, disguised as a Spanish sailor, made his way back to British shores and the life of a sea captain.
In the meantime, the count had taken his daughter to a villa in Valencia, a palatial house vacated by another aristocrat, to live out his days as a widower. Maria had promised to mourn the man she had been married to for less than a month.
When St. John paid a call during his last time in Valencia two months’ prior, he soon learned she had kept her word. Dressed in a black bombazine gown and a black veil, she was still mourning a man who, according to Marcus Higgins, was miraculously alive.
So why hadn’t Christopher Fitzsimmons sent word to her he still lived?
Perhaps he had, not knowing Maria and the conde were no longer in Madrid.
John St. John finished off his brandy and settled under the bed linens. The solution to Marcus Higgins’ need for a courier seemed obvious as he dozed.
Who better than Lady Maria Paloma Silvestri y Arístegui de Benavides? She could deliver herself to the wounded viscount along with the letters.
Excitement growing at the realization he could reunite the two young aristocrats, St. John grinned as he fell asleep.