Page 39 of The Forbidden Love of an Officer
She had not been well during their journey; she had her bleed and her stomach had been painful and queasy. It was a problem which would arrive each month as they travelled, a thing a man would never need to think of – another thing to make him wonder if he had done right by her.
But this was no time to fret over her stamina. He needed to find somewhere for them to stay until he knew where the regiment was to go next – and there were many others here hunting for accommodation.
‘This is madness,’ Ellen said.
‘It is.’ The noise about them was deafening, with so many voices all shouting over one another seeking someone to carry luggage, and asking directions, while working men shouted orders over that, to load and unload ships.
‘We will walk this way.’ At least Paul knew his way around Ostend.
On a street away from the docks he managed to hire a hansom cab, but the streets were overflowing with carriages and people, just like the docks, and it took an age for the man to navigate through it. The world had truly gone mad.
It was only a few streets. They would have probably reached his destination quicker on foot. But to his relief, the boarding house he had used previously had a room available. It was nothing grand, yet it was adequate and they would not be in Ostend for long.
‘Stay here in the room. I will go back and bring our trunks.’ Ellen only nodded. She looked exhausted. ‘Rest. I know you have not slept well during the journey.’ He had slept in the wooden bunk above hers as she had been bleeding, but he had heard her moving restlessly each night.
She nodded agreement, then bent to unlace her half boots.
He knelt before her and took over the task. Once her boots were off, she unbuttoned the front of her pelisse and he slipped it from her shoulders. Then she lay down on the bed, not even looking at him, she was so tired. He watched her, unwilling to leave her, but he needed to go back and tell the men where to bring their possessions, and of course he had to fetch Jennifer and bring her here too.
‘Do you have the headache still?’ He leaned and brushed a lock of hair from her brow, gently stroking her temple. She nodded. ‘I shall have a maid bring up some remedy.’ She nodded again, her eyes closing.
There was a pain in his stomach once more; the one that kept challenging his ability to protect her. Ignoring it, he left.
It was two hours later when Paul returned. He entered the room to wake her before allowing his men to carry in the trunks. He had left Jennifer with the female proprietor, to be shown to a bed in the servants’ quarters in the attic above.
When he let the men in to set the items down, Ellen sat in the only chair in the room, still looking pale and tired.
They were to move on in four days. Then Ellen would discover what it truly was to be the wife of an army officer; there would be no laying abed.
Once his men had gone, he shut the door. At least he could stay with Ellen until tomorrow now.
‘Is this all too much for you?’ he asked.
Her eyes focused on him. ‘No, I am simply unwell. I shall be well again tomorrow now we are off the ship, and my bleed will cease in a day or two.’
Fortunately, she would have a month before she had to endure this again and hopefully within that month they would reach Brussels. The plan was for the Allied forces to gather and wait in and around Brussels, while their leaders argued over the politics of Europe at the Congress of Vienna. Napoleon had already been named an outlaw, though, so it was only a matter of time before war began.
‘Let me help you undress,’ he offered, ‘then you may rest properly.’
She stood and let him begin releasing the buttons at her back. Once they were all undone, he helped her step out of her dress and put it aside, then unlaced her short corset. When it slid off, he kissed the skin above the line of her chemise at her shoulder. She shivered.
He knew she was in no condition to be bedded, but his body longed for it. ‘Lay down,’ he encouraged.
Thoughts of war, memories, and dreams had been haunting him since the day they had left Cork.
She lay beneath the sheet and the coarse blankets covering the bed, shut her eyes and fell asleep in moments.
It was only three in the afternoon. He could go out, but he did not like to, he preferred to stay here and watch over her. There would be so many times to come when he would not have that choice.
He sat in the chair she had vacated and ran his palm over his face.Damn it. Why did that bastard Napoleon have to continue his war?Paul was tired of the endless hunger and effort, and the need to close himself off to avoid the pain of constant death.
He looked out from the window at the street below. People flooded it, people who seemed to think following the army to Ostend was fun. There was a party atmosphere in the street. These people had come to cheer the soldiers on, while the soldiers, all tired of war, longed to sit back and let others fight.
Paul could not help being reminded of the amphitheatres he had seen on the Continent, those that hundreds of years ago would entertain crowds with men battling until death. It was macabre. These people had come to play audience to men killing and being killed. It did not hearten him. It turned his stomach.
11
By the time they reached Ghent, for the first time in his life Paul regretted joining the army. They had travelled from Ostend by barge to reduce the time it would take to reach Brussels but Ellen had not been allowed to travel with the regiment; she’d journeyed on another craft, and the isolation from her had been unbearable. He had worried over her, although by all accounts, her journey in the company of the battle tourists was as good as a pleasure cruise with excellent food and entertainment, as if this were no more than a festival parade.
