Arriving at the crowded hospital, she set to work with a vengeance. There was always so much to do and not enough people or supplies to do it with.
Bent over the ripped arm of a sergeant, Pippa concentrated on removing the dressing with as little pain as possible. Gangrene had set in.
‘How is it?’ the man asked, agony etching furrows in his brow.
Pippa looked from the arm that would need to be amputated to the man’s face. It was all she could do to keep tears from slipping down her face. ‘You will need the surgeon to look at you,’ she said calmly, quietly, hoping the sergeant didn’t see the truth in her eyes. ‘For now, I am going to clean it and let it lay unwrapped. The air will do it good.’
What she didn’t tell the man was that it would not matter what she did, and the surgeon would be glad of the time saved by not having to remove a bandage. Too many soldiers needed operations. Sighing, Pippa stood and knuckled the kinks in her lower back.
‘You, young man,’ a French-accented female voice said imperiously. ‘Come here.’
Pippa was getting used to being called a boy and turned to see if the woman was speaking to her. A small, blonde Pocket Venus with the biggest, bluest eyes Pippa had ever seen, knelt less than ten feet away with a soldier’s head in her lap. The woman was dressed in the height of fashion in a sprigged muslin dress, all of which was covered by a voluminous apron. Definitely a lady, but the accent was wrong for a British hospital.
Pippa strode to her. ‘Madam?’
‘Lady Witherspoon.’ She motioned Pippa down. ‘This man needs a bath and I cannot give it. The water is right here and a piece of soap.’
Pippa nearly choked. This was one of the few duties she had managed to avoid. ‘Ah, milady…’
Before she could finish her explanation, the lady had gone on to the next patient. Pippa stared after her, feeling awkward and trapped. Luckily, she saw Sergeant Jones and waved him over.
‘I cannot lift the man properly,’ she gave him her regular excuse, one he’d heard frequently.
Jones gave her his great lopsided grin that showed a missing canine tooth. ‘Then you take that bloke over yonder. Has shrapnel all in his head. Them head wounds are the bloodiest nuisances. Turn my stomach with all their weeping they do.’
Pippa agreed willingly, but before going asked, ‘Who was that lady? Her accent is all wrong.’
Jones didn’t even bother to look where Pippa indicated. ‘Frenchie. Married to our Marquis of Witherspoon. Several of the men have spit on her, but she never says a harsh word. Almost as though she’s doin’ this to make up fer somethin’.’ He grunted as he rolled the patient on to his side. ‘She’s been helpin’ regular as clockwork. Not as good as you, mind, but then she’s a woman—and Quality.’
Pippa suppressed a grin at his lumping her with the ‘men’, while she digested the information. ‘Then why have I never seen her?’
Jones slanted her a knowing look. ‘Fine woman, but not fer the likes of me ‘n’ you, lad. Besides, she comes in the late afternoon. You’re with the Major making rounds.’
Accepting Jones’s assumption and explanation, Pippa went to her next patient. At least her disguise was perfectly safe. If the man she spent the most time with, and who did all the really personal care of the wounded, thought she was male, then everyone else did too.
Many hours later, Pippa walked the darkened streets of Brussels. Her back ached, her feet hurt, and she’d cried enough tears to float one of His Majesty’s ships. The man had lost his arm, screaming in pain in spite of all the rum she and Jones had forced between his clenched teeth. She hated it when these things happened.
Her reaction made her question her commitment to healing. She should be strong and not cry. She should be able to focus on doing what was necessary and go on. The local surgeon had said she felt too much of her patients’ pain, that she needed to distance herself emotionally—and that was before she came here and saw all this carnage.
She raked her fingers through the short length of her hair, her hand running on even after the strands ended. A month since she’d whacked off her waist-length hair, and she still tried to comb it as she had for many years. Another tear slipped.
Pippa stopped in the middle of the road and stomped her foot. She was acting like a watering pot. This would never do. She had things to do. Sick men to help and a brother to find.
Philip.
Somewhere her twin still lived. Instead of spending all her time worrying about the man lying in her bed or crying over things that had to be done, she should try again to see Wellington. Last week was the most recent time she’d sought an audience with the Iron Duke, and last week was the most recent time her request had been denied. Tomorrow she would try again.
Finding Philip was her sole reason for being here in Brussels, disguised as a boy and unchaperoned. Nothing else mattered.
Her grandfather thought she was here with Aunt Tabitha, but Aunt Tabitha was in London, blissfully unaware that Pippa was supposed to be under her chaperonage in Brussels. That was the way Pippa wanted it.
She had cut off her hair and taken the clothes Philip had worn as a youth. They were no longer in fashion, but a country man might still wear them. Disguised as a boy, she had booked passage on a packet crossing the channel and made her way here.
A young woman would never be told anything but what was proper, and she had a funny feeling that what had happened to her twin was less than respectable. Nor would a woman have been allowed the freedom to come and go as she had been while asking about her twin in the hopes that some clue to his whereabouts would emerge.
But if someone ever found out what she had done, her reputation would be gone. No one in Polite Society would ever receive her. No decent man would ever ask for her hand, no matter how wealthy she was. Not that she wanted to marry. She wanted to heal the sick and had turned down numerous offers from Aunt Tabitha to come to London for the Season. Still, she did not want to be beyond the pale.
She sighed. She had to stop this useless worrying, it did her no good. Shaking her head to clear the melancholy thoughts, she squared her shoulders. Spirits somewhat under control, Pippa strode purposely to her lodging.
She paused just inside the door of her darkened room, allowing her eyes to adjust. The moon shone through the lone window like a silver flame in a big lantern. A splash of white light fell across the bed where Deverell St Simon lay, his face flushed and glistening from sweat.
‘Patrick! Damn it man, where are you?’ His anxious words cut through the night. ‘I can’t see you!’
A nightmare. Pippa forgot her earlier resolve to have him gone as soon as possible and rushed to his side.
She put a hand to his forehead. Fever. She should have prepared another draught of bark and left it with the landlady with instructions to give it to him. Instead, she had let her attraction to him make her careless. Guilt twisted her stomach even as she wrung a damp cloth in the nearby bowl of water which she had placed just for this type of occurrence.
Remorse brought still more tears. She dashed them away with the heel of her hand and concentrated on cooling and soothing her patient. She was overly tired and needed a good night’s sleep, something she would get shortly.
‘Deverell,’ she murmured, ‘everything is fine. You’re in my bed, not on the battlefield. Patrick is not here.’
Her voice seemed to calm him. He stopped thrashing and no more words came.
Pippa crossed to her bag of herbs, lit a single candle and prepared more bark. Kneeling at the bed, she dripped it into her patient’s mouth.
His eyes opened, catching her in their brilliance. ‘Angel,’