A Debutante In Disguise. Eleanor Webster

and she’d had remarkable green eyes.

      For a moment, the memory was so vivid, it shook him. It was as though he could almost see the girl in her bright ruffles, with those mesmerising eyes.

      The clarity of this memory was oddly shocking because, since his injury, his memory had been peculiarly warped. His recollection of his life before Waterloo had felt distant, separate from him as though details from another person’s experience.

      But those insignificant moments with the peculiar Miss Barton seemed more real than anything else in this peculiar existence which had been so distinctly dissected; the before and after.

      ‘Right,’ Miss Barton said crisply. ‘Unless you wished to talk to me further, I will provide Lady Beauchamp with some water.’

      ‘What?’ He was jerked back to reality and felt again an oddity, a stranger in a world which should be familiar. ‘No, you will not. Lady Beauchamp’s medic advised against water, you should not advise otherwise, certainly not based on a few conversations with a midwife.’

      ‘Midwives,’ she corrected. ‘And I have never read that a woman’s fluid intake should be limited when with child and I have read extensively on the subject.’

      ‘No doubt.’ Again, the image of the odd girl in her odd dress flickered before his inner eye. ‘However, I am certain our physician has also read a considerable amount. Indeed, I do not feel that we need impose upon your time any more. I am certain a servant can get anything we might need.’

      ‘Actually, likely I do need to get you anything you need, because my sister-in-law has every servant out on the lawn and you scared her off by your unpleasant demeanour. Anyway, I am happy for the excuse. I am not particularly fond of chatting.’

      ‘I remember.’

      She glanced at him, a frown puckering her forehead, and he realised that she had not yet placed him. Not surprising—he had been a man of fair looks and now—

      With a tiny shrug as though tracking down his reference was not worth the effort, Miss Barton walked back to Elsie. She moved briskly, her unfashionable grey skirts swishing. He wondered that neither the elder nor the younger Mrs Barton had not yet improved her style. Although the gown oddly suited her, the soft grey making her hair and green eyes the more vibrant.

      ‘You are with child,’ Miss Barton said to Elsie, in that direct way of hers, which would have been shocking in any other unmarried female, but seemed in no way unusual for this woman.

      ‘Yes, six or seven months.’

      ‘Your wrists are swollen. Your ankles, too. And your fingers, although that is hard to discern as you are wearing gloves. From your comment about your slippers I would surmise that your feet are also distended. In addition, your face appears unnaturally puffy.’

      Elsie laughed. ‘You certainly have a way with words.’

      ‘As I recall, Miss Barton is under the misapprehension that she has medical knowledge.’ Tony spoke sharply, although this was in part because he realised the woman was right. Elsie looked puffy and the bracelet she always wore was tight, as though cutting into the skin. Why hadn’t he noticed?

      ‘I am not under any misapprehension. I do not suffer from misapprehensions in general. Now I must get you water.’ Miss Barton took a glass tumbler from the tray which held water and other refreshments.

      Her positivity grated. She seemed so sure of herself. This irritated—perhaps because he had once been sure of himself and now was sure of nothing. He remembered his amused curiosity as he had chuckled inwardly at the quaint girl with her strange ideas. He had told Elsie about her, although she’d scarcely attended. That was also the night that she and George had fallen in love. They had known each other for ever, but on that night, friend had morphed into suitor.

      And two months later, Father had walked her up the aisle. Elsie had looked happy and beautiful. Edgar had been typically pompous in his regimental uniform and George had looked as though he would burst for joy.

      Then the church bells had rung jubilantly as the wedding party stepped out into a bright, cloudless day.

      The splash of water into the tumbler caught his attention, piercing through the memories clogging his brain.

      ‘Miss Barton!’ He spoke hardly. ‘Lady Beauchamp’s doctor says she should not have water.’

      ‘Then her doctor is a fool.’

      ‘He is a trained physician,’ he retorted.

      ‘One does not preclude the other.’

      ‘You are little more than a school girl and you suggest you know more than a qualified doctor?’

      ‘Based on my experience—’

      ‘Your experience? What experience?’

      Colour flushed into her cheeks and she opened her lips before snapping them shut. ‘I—’

      ‘I don’t care,’ Elsie said suddenly and loudly from the couch. ‘I am so thirsty. It is all I can think about. Surely a sip will not do me harm.’

      ‘It will not. We have water here.’ Miss Barton handed her the tumbler. ‘And keep your feet elevated. You said you have been having headaches. What about vertigo?’

      ‘Yes, some. I told Dr Jeffers. He did not seem much concerned. Do you—do you think the baby is fine?’ Elsie asked.

      Tony heard her fear and felt his worry balloon.

      Miss Barton nodded, but Tony saw concern flicker across her mobile features and felt another twist of fear, cutting through his usual numbness.

      ‘I will summon Jeffers here,’ he said.

      ‘No, no, please, do not,’ Elsie begged. ‘I feel so tired and I would so much prefer to go home.’

      Tony paused. To his irritation, he found himself glancing towards the authoritative young woman in her unfashionable garb and ruddy hair.

      She nodded. ‘Likely Lady Beauchamp would feel more comfortable at home.’

      ‘See!’ Elsie said.

      ‘The fact that a young miss approves is hardly a deciding factor.’

      ‘But the ride is quite short—little more than an hour. Most of it is in the shade of the woods and, if we keep the windows down, there will be a breeze and I am feeling much improved.’

      Elsie sipped her water, sighing, her relief so palpable that Tony wondered whether perhaps this irritating young woman was not in the right and not the self-important Dr Jeffers.

      ‘You are looking better,’ he acknowledged. ‘I will summon the carriage and request that a servant be sent to Jeffers so that he can meet us at Beauchamp.’ He went to ring the bell, but was stopped by Miss Barton’s sudden interruption.

      ‘I realised where we met before,’ she said, her usually serious face lit with delight. ‘It has been bothering me—you know, like a blister when one is walking. It was at my debut and we talked in Lord Entwhistle’s library. You have changed.’

      ‘A bullet hole and burns will do that.’

      He said these things, he knew, to intimidate, to push people away.

      ‘Yes, although the scarring is limited.’ She eyed him critically.

      Oddly, he felt a peculiar relief. Usually people would look his way as though oddly drawn to his wounds and then, their curiosity satisfied, glance away, their distaste and disgust evident.

      Turning from her, he tugged on the bell pull, his movement awkward.

      ‘You are still injured?’ she said.

      ‘It is nothing.’

      ‘It impacts your movement which is not nothing.’

      ‘Regardless, it is certainly