“Wellington sent my company to defend Hougoumont, the farmhouse at the thick of the fighting. I was badly injured and when I came to, in a surgeon’s tent after the battle, I could hardly speak.
When they asked me my name, I managed ‘John Smith.’”
Lady Grayson exhaled, a disapproving sound when she added the slightest note of derision to it. “You couldn’t remember your name?”
“That is my name,” he said. “Smythe is a version of Smith, and the Dalkington has only belonged to it for the last fifty years, when my great-grandparents married.” Julia Dalkington, an heiress whose family had insisted on the hyphenation in exchange for the bulk of her fortune.
“You should have made the effort to say it. I’m surprised no one knew you. Did they not find identification?” Lady Graywood sounded affronted that nobody realised who he was, but Faith understood exactly why nobody had recognised him. A head injury would leave swelling and blood. They’d have no time to clean him, merely to attend to the wound enough to give him a chance at life.
And he would have been naked, or close to it, when they brought him in. Scavengers stripped the wounded and dead, left them to lie together while they removed anything of value. If they thought he could recognise them, or if he’d put up any resistance, they’d have killed him.
Faith shuddered. “Did you lie on the battlefield?” she managed to say, the words conjuring the vision of bare, churned-up ground strewn with bodies, white and red, bloody and pale in death.
Waterloo wasn’t the only battleground she’d seen after the event.
The worst sound she ever heard in her life was the moaning of the men barely alive. No, the worst was the eerie silence that fell a day later when the troops went out to collect and bury their dead. If they could accomplish it without being killed themselves. Her husband usually ensured she stayed well behind the lines, but sometimes lines shifted, and they had to travel through the place to get away. The hot Spanish sun would already be doing its work. At least it had rained at Waterloo.
His hand tightened on hers and she knew he was remembering, too. “So you were John Smith?” she prompted gently, trying to dispel the visions that would help nobody, least of all her and the man sitting next to her.
His voice dropped steadily into the room, too measured. Faith heard the rigid control. “I could remember no more. Hardly surprising because someone struck me on the head, a vicious blow that rendered me helpless. While the result of the battle relieved some of my concerns, my personal memories had left. I knew I was English, because I spoke the language naturally. While some memories returned rapidly, others remained hidden. They came back only recently.”
When she met his gaze the bottom of her stomach fell away.
This was it, the moment she’d dreaded for years, her undoing. She could read nothing in his dark eyes before he turned to address her ladyship and her daughters.
“I still don’t recall the month before the battle. On that, my mind is almost completely blank. I received a severe a shock when my cousin told me that my wife was living in London and considered herself a widow. As far as I knew, I had no wife.” Again, he swung around to meet her eyes. The corners of his mouth twitched in the beginnings of a smile and his expression warmed.
“Such a lovely wife, too.”
The breath caught in her throat and she had to tell herself to breathe. He didn’t remember? He didn’t know? “Do you recollect much before that month?”
He shook his head. “It’s patchy. I think my memory is at full strength about a year before.” He stopped and picked up a glass of wine from the table on his other side. She remembered her own drink and took a fortifying sip of what remained. Lord knew she needed it. He continued with his story. “After Waterloo I got out of that medical tent in a week. Nobody wants to linger in those places and once I was out of danger they required the space for the worse-off. The man in the bed next to me had decided to leave Europe for the New World. It sounded an excellent idea to me, so we took ship to Canada as soon as we could get a berth.” He turned a sombre gaze on to her. “You helped with the wounded?”
“Pray do not tell me you saw the injuries!” Lady Graywood exclaimed and her eldest daughter Charlotte shivered, more, Faith thought, in excitement than horror. But then, she hadn’t been there. Journalists, storytellers, could make it sound exciting.
Newspapers did it all the time.
“Everyone did,” she said. “Ladies of high renown did all they could to help too.” Even though she’d hated every minute she’d helped, the wails of the wounded terrifying her. She’d never forget the moment when they passed from life into death and left everything behind. The soldier became—not a person any longer.
Only a carcass. Perversely, the sight had increased her sense of the spiritual, that something had gone. Not that it assisted her at the time. She’d moved on to the next wretch, who was as likely to curse her or vomit on her, depending on the state of his wounds.
“Not a scene I would wish my daughters to witness,” Lady Graywood said.
“But a service the injured were immensely grateful for,” John said, and squeezed her hand. Camaraderie. Kinship of a kind that went beyond blood. She felt the shared experiences flow through them, and knew here was one person she could talk to who would understand. Except, of course, she couldn’t. She had to keep her guard up around him, more than anyone else.
“I rejoiced to see the back of Europe,” he said. “I had nothing at home, or I thought I did not. By the time I reached dry land, most of my memory had returned, but I saw no reason to return to England. My parents were dead, I was an only child, and two healthy men stood between me and the earldom. I sent a letter to inform you of my decision to stay away, although I understand that it never arrived, and I set out for the wilds of Canada. I found work when I needed it and kept moving. Eventually I discovered a trade.
Fur trapping. I made a reasonable amount of money, enough to buy a house in a more civilised area, and employ a few people.” Yes, he was dressed respectably, not in the first stare of fashion. His coat didn’t fit him like a glove. It looked as if he could remove it for himself, rather than have a manservant peel it off his form, but a Corinthian would envy the figure under.
He was the husband she’d always secretly dreamed of.
Except he wasn’t her husband.
Chapter Two
The moment he saw her face John regretted his decision to prevent any attempt to give Faith the news of his survival. He’d wanted to see her reaction untarnished by prior knowledge. He’d only arrived at the house that afternoon, having taken a day to rest and consult with his man of business in London. That meant the dowager countess hadn’t exactly had time to gather her thoughts, either.
When he’d given her the news about her sons she’d retreated to her private chambers. She hadn’t re-emerged until half an hour ago, still dressed in her morning gown. He’d taken it on himself to cancel the dinner for that evening. From what he remembered of her, this was as unlike her usual behaviour as to suggest the sad tidings he’d delivered had affected her more than she revealed publicly.
John sensed that if he let go of Faith’s hand, she’d bolt for the nearest door. Or window, if she couldn’t find a door close enough.
Faith Dalkington-Smythe had fooled the dowager completely. Lady Graywood was one reason he’d shaken the dust of Europe—or the mud—off his boots with such alacrity. Fur trapping beat soldiering any day of the week, although he could have horrified her delicate ladyship with tales of the conditions he’d lived through. She’d never have received most of the men he called friends in her elegant drawing-room.