Page 38 of Miss Delightful
“Ciudad Rodrigo was in January. By March, we were besieging Badajoz, and that… The damned rain would not let up, we couldn’t get our cannon forward, the French were picking us off like so many nesting partridges, and Soult was breathing down our necks. When battle was finally joined, we lost thousands of good men in just a few hours. Wellington, who has seen many a battle, wept at the carnage.”
“A victory though,” Dorcas said. “A costly victory.”
“Badajoz made the aftermath in Ciudad Rodrigo look like a speech-day romp. Many soldiers were flogged for misconduct, but nobody was hanged. We were left instead to pickle our souls in the shame of a victorious army turned into a mob of demons.”
None of this had been in the papers. “The soldiers misbehaved?”
“For three days, we looted, raped, killed, and drank without limit. Hundreds of civilians died—and they were our allies. Rank and file shot the officers they’d fought beside the day before, and if I am ever consigned to hell, I will regard it a mercy provided I’m not forced to relive those experiences.”
“But you do relive them.” Dorcas had her own version of hell, and it was never far from her thoughts.
“Time helps,” he said softly, “but I don’t want to forget what can happen to good men when they are pushed too far. Had circumstances been different, I might have been among those too drunk to govern my behaviors.”
“What happened?”
“I remained sober, thank the Deity. I walked the streets, a loaded gun in my hand, and more than once, that weapon was all that stood between me and St. Peter. The world as I knew it was inebriated with evil.”
This recounting was clearly important to Mr. MacKay, a confidence, and not at all what Dorcas had been expecting to hear when she’d agreed to make Charlie’s acquaintance.
“Go on.”
The kitten attacked the toe of Mr. MacKay’s boot. Such a fierce little ball of fluff.
“I came upon my commanding officer, a newly promoted lieutenant colonel. His papa was a viscount, he’d been mentioned in the dispatches, and yet, he was one of those cowards who lead from the rear. The men were wary of him. Left to his own devices, he’d send them into stupid situations for the sake of his own advancement. Still, I thought him inexperienced and vain, not truly wicked. I got along with him because I had to.”
“Because he could have had you flogged for a loose button.”
“Officers weren’t usually flogged, but we were held to account in other ways.”
The kitten pounced and retreated, then pounced again. Mr. MacKay watched this assault and remained unmoving.
“Lieutenant Colonel Dunacre was with a woman,” Mr. MacKay said, his voice taking on a distant quality, “a young woman. They were in the courtyard of a home that had to have been among the better residences in the town. Most of the families who could had left before the battle, but some stayed, much to their sorrow. The lieutenant colonel was clearly intent upon revelry with the young lady.”
MacKay’s calm made this recounting all the more dreadful. “What was the woman intent upon?”
“At the time, I told myself that only the prostitutes would have remained in a besieged garrison town, that the young woman did not appear to be objecting. She had some English and kept urging Dunacre toward the stable, which I assumed was a gesture in the direction of privacy. I did not want to see my commanding officer at less than his best. When I should have asked more questions, should have taken the lady aside and assured myself of her willingness, I did not.”
“Would Dunacre have allowed you to intervene?”
“That’s not the point, Dorcas. The woman was a civilian, a noncombatant who’d just seen her entire town destroyed and very likely lost loved ones in the battle. Dunacre should have left her in peace. In the midst of a riot, he was choosing the side of mayhem and rapine, when he should have been helping to restore order. I ignored his ignominious behavior and went about my own business.”
And how Alasdhair’s voice wielded the lash of contempt for that choice now. He picked up the kitten, who commenced batting at his chin.
“If there’s more, Alasdhair, you can tell me.” Though what he’d told Dorcas so far was bad enough. “I’ve been to jail, you know. The stories I heard there broke my heart. Women having to make terrible choices, to endure terrible consequences. My own troubles faded to annoyances in the face of what I heard, and I am no longer so easily shocked.” Dorcas had regained her soul during those nights in jail, an utterly unexpected place to find redemption.
Alasdhair gently scratched the kitten’s shoulders, which resulted in a gentle purring. “That young woman was a mother. She’d been leading Dunacre away from the house in which her two small children were hiding. She hanged herself later that day, and the next time I saw her, she was laid out on the cobbles, those children standing dry-eyed and helpless beside her body. Dunacre, by contrast, was bragging about the pretty bit of Spanish lace he’d enjoyed most of the afternoon with. I nearly blew out my own brains, but I still had duties to attend to, men to look after. Taking my own life would have served no purpose and upset my cousins. There was a war to win, and too many lives had already been lost…”
It’s not your faultwould be no comfort. Viewed from a certain honorable perspective, this tragedy within tragedies might have been prevented—if Alasdhair had acted differently—or it might have ended with Alasdhair laid out on the cobbles.
“I am glad you did not blow out your brains, Mr. MacKay. Exceedingly glad.”
The kitten snuggled against his chest, while the mother cat watched from across the room.
“I wasn’t glad, not for a long time. I took the children to the church, because the fine soldiers of His Majesty’s army certainly hadn’t a thought for the town’s orphans. Dorcas, the nuns were sheltering dozens of children. Boys, girls, all ages… The little ones looking after the littler ones. Their parents were gone, killed in a war the Spanish had tried desperately to avert. More than a few were orphaned when a mother despoiled by drunken soldiers could not endure the shame of her ill treatment. I have never been so disgusted to be a man or a soldier and never felt more helpless.”
Dorcas took off her gloves and possessed herself of Mr. MacKay’s free hand. “I felt that way in jail. Surrounded by injustice and despair, unable to change any of it. We lock children up with their mothers and consider that an act of compassion, though we incarcerate those children amid disease, bad rations, and regular violence. We leave those children—some of them little more than infants—sitting on the dock when their mothers are transported. I think of them when Papa wants me to temper my articles. Instead, I sharpen my words.”
“And I adore you for that,” Mr. MacKay said. “I adore you for your rapier-sharp words.”
