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,’ he whispered. ‘My angel of mercy.’
Pippa started, nearly dropping the half-full glass. ‘No! That is…’ She took a deep calming breath. He was delirious. “Tis me. Pippen. The boy who is taking care of you.’
‘Pippen?’ Bewilderment replaced the admiration in his eyes. ‘Oh, yes. I remember now.’
Pippa lifted his head and tipped the rest of her concoction down his throat. ‘That will help you,’ she said as he sputtered.
‘Choke me, more like,’ he said with a faint smile that did dangerous things to her equilibrium.
She let his head fall. ‘Some laudanum will ease the pain in your leg and help you sleep.’
‘You should take some for yourself, Pippen.’ His hazel eyes, full of compassion, held hers. ‘You look exhausted. I’d wager a monkey that since I’ve been here you have not gotten a decent night’s sleep.’
His words were too close to the truth for comment. Instead, she held out the opium.
‘I need to go back to my own rooms,’ he said. ‘There is no reason you should have to give up your bed and your privacy for me.’
He took the small glass from her. Pippa didn’t fight him, understanding that he needed to show he was not completely
