The Hourglass (2 page)

The soldier gaped at the fine gentleman’s offer to help. “Gawd, now I seen everything.”

Not by half, he hadn’t. “I always liked horses,” was all the instant earl could think to say. “And I have a way with hurt creatures. Perhaps I can calm them, or help get a few on their feet so we can lead them to a veterinary.”

“It’s a dreadful piece of work,” Sergeant Campbell warned.

Lord Ardeth took up the soldier’s pistol, having studied one of the weapons after the last battle he’d been assigned. Death did not bother him. It was life that was terrifying.

*

They managed to save a string of horses, not the stalwart destriers used for carrying armored knights into battle, but brave chargers nevertheless. Ardeth rode a handsome black stallion named Black Butch, whose owner would not be riding again, ever. He had the fallen hero’s name, to send compensation to his family.

The sergeant and the earl led their small herd back to the cavalry encampment for water and doctoring. The master of horses almost wept in gratitude, and neither he
nor his staff would soon forget the dark rider or Campbell’s awed recounting of his lordship’s uncanny skills.

After a hasty swallow of wine and a heel of bread—Ardeth had forgotten that a body needed sustenance and was growing light-headed—he insisted on taking Campbell to the field hospital. The sounds and stench and suffering were too much like Hell for him to enter, yet had he not just vowed to serve his fellow men?

He gladly bypassed the areas of amputation and cauterization. “Your arm needs cleansing and stitching, nothing else,” he told the sergeant. They stepped into a field of cots and pallets and threadbare blankets laid on the sodden ground, all filled with wounded, waiting soldiers.

“Great gods.” In all his years, in famine and flood, Ardeth had never seen such devastation. Did he really want to be part of a species that could wreak so much havoc on its own kind? Then he saw the telltale flash of a life winking out. He narrowed his eyes to spot one of his former workmates leaning on a staff, watching a surgeon at work. One of the Cyrillic letters, he thought, wasting time. “Get on with it, Zheh,” he shouted in Russian. “Can you not see how many men are in agony?”

More than half of these poor souls would die of blood loss or wounds gone putrid or fevers that would rage through the hospital, Ardeth knew. Better to end their suffering now. “Move!” he shouted, this time in English. Any man who could walk or crawl got out of the way of the tall dark figure in his flowing cape. Ardeth ignored the mortals in favor of the specter they could not see.

Another light flashed. “
Dah,
fine for you to give orders,” the Slavic terminator muttered. “If some of us would do our jobs instead of dreaming what cannot be, then others of us would not have to work so hard.
Nyet
.”

Humility came hard to one such as Sir Coryn of Ardsley or Ar of the Afterlife or Lord Ardeth, but the earl bowed. “My apologies. Having a short span of time shortens one’s temper, it seems.”

A surgeon in a gore-specked apron came over to see what the stir was about. His lips curled into a sneer at the sight of a well-dressed nobleman. “My men need laudanum, my lord, not fancy words and pretty manners. We are too busy for your sort here.”

“But I have some experience with sickness,” Ardeth said in a vast understatement. “And know ways of bringing peace without opiates.”

“Like that Herr Mesmer, eh? I read of him.”

“Something like that, yes. There are pressure points, sleep inducers, many other ways to relieve pain.”

Campbell stepped forward. “I’ve seen his lordship with the horses. He worked wonders, he did.”

“Very well, we can use whatever means the Lord, and this lord, can provide,” the surgeon said, turning to get back to his endless-seeming stitching. “But the raven has to go. We do not need any symbols of death flapping around, scaring the men worse.”

“He is a crow,” Ardeth began, but the bird flapped up and down on his shoulder.

“I’m alive! Alive I am!” it squawked.

The surgeon and the nearby patients all gasped. First this stranger talked to the air in foreign tongues; then his—pet?—gave voice.

“He means Olive,” Ardeth hurried to explain. “I almost managed to teach the featherhead his name. He sayeth—he says little else.” The threatening look the earl fixed on the gremlin ought to guarantee that. “But he can wait outside if his presence upsets the men.” To the crow Ardeth whispered, “Go look for the pin. I’ll be here a while, it seems.”

Campbell had been relating to the soldiers and the aides what his lordship had done at the battlefield. Even the infantrymen loved horses, so they forgot what they’d seen, what they’d heard, and welcomed a well-breeched rescuer into their midst.

Ardeth got to work.

Hours later—he’d lost count of how many—he heard a commotion. A major was shouting at the surgeon, who was shaking his head.

“There are officers who need doctoring, I say.”

“And I say I cannot spare any of my staff. They are ready to collapse as is.”

“What of that man?” the major asked, pointing toward Ardeth. “He seems to be competent. His patients are not moaning, and his hands are clean, at least.”

“That is Ardeth. His volunteering to help was a blessing.”

The major walked toward Ardeth, not looking at the men he had to step between.

“We need you in the officers’ tent.”

“They need me here.”

“A general is wounded, I say.”

“Are your companions more worthy than the men who fought for them, then?”

The major straightened, although he still did not reach Ardeth’s height. “They are officers and gentlemen.”

Ardeth could not help noticing that the man’s uniform was nearly spotless, with lace at his collar and cuffs. He knew the kind. “Were you in the battle?”

“Of course. I led my troops to their position before returning to headquarters for further orders.”

“While you turned these so-called common men into cannon fodder, ordering them to keep marching to their deaths?” He rudely turned his back on the arrogant dastard.

“Ardeth!”

He turned back. The major had his hand on the sword at his side. Ardeth thought of melting the steel. Instead he stated, “That is Coryn, Earl of Ardeth.”

Now the officer looked confused. “I have never heard of any such earldom, and I know my peerage.”

Ardeth decided this was as good a time as any to begin spinning his web. “The title had been in abeyance until my grandfather was found. He was a third son, who went exploring the world, never expecting to inherit. His son, my late father, also had the wanderlust, so the College of Arms could never locate him, either. I have seen the Orient, Africa, and the New World, but never England. That is about to change. My bona fides have already been appraised and approved, so you shall, I swear, be hearing more of me, but not today, nor in the officers’ quarters, either. Good day, Major.”

The officer stomped away, only to return shortly, chasing a large black bird that settled on Ardeth’s shoulder. The crow held a gold button in its beak.

“Thief!” Major Willeford shouted, almost stepping on the foot of a sleeping soldier.

“And a poor thief at that,” Ardeth murmured. “That does not even look like an hourglass.”

“An hourglass? Are your attics to let? It is a medal, by George. And I earned it!”

“Did you, now?” Ardeth passed it back to the officer, who frowned. Ardeth’s hands and clothing were no longer quite so clean.

Willeford said, “You really ought to come with me to the officers’ quarters. This is no place for a gentleman.”

“Yet this is where I am needed most.”

“You shall not succeed in England, you know, not with that attitude. Loyalty to one’s own kind matters.”

Ardeth had heard tales from the major’s men. “The loyalty you showed your soldiers? You rode away on your horse when they were being cut down on foot. I think you do not wish me to speak to your superior officers after all, wounded or not.”

Again, the major’s hand was on his sword. “Are you calling me a coward?”

The earl did not answer. Instead he asked, “Are you thinking of challenging me? Do not bother. I shall not duel. Enough blood has been shed, and life is too precious, even yours.”

The major’s face turned red as he heard snickers from the wounded men. “Foreign scum like you will never be accepted in proper English society. My brother-in-law is the Duke of Sneddin. He’ll see that you are rejected at all the gentlemen’s clubs, refused invitations to the
beau monde
. You will be a pariah in the polite world.”

“Did I forget to mention the fortune my grandfather amassed in his wanderings, or how my father tripled his wealth?” This was not such a non sequitur to anyone who understood how the aristocracy actually operated. “My own investments have returned a handsome profit also.”

Major Lord Willeford spun on his heels. “You, sir, can go to hell.”

“Ah, but I just came from there.”

Chapter Two

If she kept busy, Genie would not have to think about her situation. With any luck, she would eventually fall into the sleep of exhaustion and not have to think at all. With her luck, though, Genie decided, she’d only have nightmares about being left in the middle of a war with no funds, no family, nowhere to go.

That was no nightmare. That was real. That was her life. Imogene Hopewell Macklin was disgraced, deserted, disowned. Gads.

She wiped another injured soldier’s brow, trying to think of these poor men crammed into the makeshift hospital instead of her own woes. Besides, if she stayed to help nurse the wounded, no one would ask why she did not return to where the officers’ womenfolk were providing care in Brussels, or why she did not go back to her own lodgings there to grieve.

She was no longer welcomed among the ladies, she was too numb to mourn, and she had no lodgings.

Her landlady had panicked and fled, locking all the doors while Genie was out, tossing the tenants’ belongings onto the street. Genie had no money to pay her rent anyway if the woman came back. She could not think about that, either, or her trunks left out for thieves and beggars to carry off what little she owned.

Here she was needed, at least. No one cared that she knew nothing of nursing. These men sought comfort, not cures. They did not mind that her hands were shaking or her voice was quavering. She could offer them water and listen to their prayers. She could write letters to their loved ones, and pen their last wills. What were her problems compared with theirs?

A selfish voice whispered in her mind that the soldiers had loved ones, that they had possessions to bequeath, addresses to send them to. And their wounds would heal. Her pain was inside, where it never would.

She must not think about pain, lest her thoughts skitter toward Elgin. The cad had not even had the decency to die in battle, a hero. No, he’d been caught the night before in the arms of another officer’s wife, too drunk to defend himself, as usual. No, she definitely must not think about Elgin, either.

She almost laughed, despite her despair, because she had nothing left to fill her mind, not the past, not the present, certainly not the future…until the dark stranger strode into the crude hospital tent while lightning flashed.

He’d ridden a black horse, they said. Seeing his black cloak, the black bird on his shoulder, his dark hair and eyes, the men started to whisper about the Angel of Death. This man was helping, though, and standing up for the common soldier against a despised officer. Both actions were unheard of, especially for a titled gentleman.

His language bespoke breeding and education, albeit foreign; his apparel indicated wealth; his bearing denoted pride, confidence, power, everything Genie lacked.

Fine bones and a straight nose made him strikingly handsome, too, in an exotic way. No ruddy, round-faced English squire, he was tall and thin, with a pale complexion as if he seldom stepped outdoors, yet he lifted men with ease. His voice was no booming, blustering blare from the hunting field, or the battlefield, yet everyone heard when he spoke. His hands were gentle, the soldiers said when he’d moved on, not rough and hurried like those of the surgeons’ other assistants. The soldiers told her they felt honored that the newcomer had tried to relieve their suffering when he could have rested in luxury. Lord Ardeth was certainly no spoiled, pleasure-seeking member of the privileged class, perhaps because of his distant upbringing, Genie supposed. She had been among the
ton,
had met cabinet ministers and generals, a royal duke, and an Austrian prince. Lord Ardeth was like nothing she had ever known or heard of, so she found him interesting—at a distance.

The earl was fascinating—and frightening. He appeared as if the marble statue of a pagan god had deigned to step off his pedestal and into their midst, bolts of lightning in his hands. All-knowing and all-powerful, he seemed, stone hard and unyielding—in contrast to his kindness. The gods of mythology were a tricksy lot at best, and Genie would not like to be in Lord Ardeth’s way when he recalled his dominion over lesser folk. Just like a godling, or like an earl, everyone was lesser, and he well knew it.