With This Ring Read Online Free PDF Page B

cot so you could rest.”
    His reply was a long time coming,
and she feared she had overstepped her bounds with him. “You’re
right,” he said finally. His voice was so soft, she was compelled
to lean closer. “Miss Perkins, have you any idea how wonderful you
smell?”
    Sir, you are a rascal, she thought,
amused that he would keep her so close just to breathe her
fragrance. “It is merely good milled soap, sir.”
    “ It is far more.”
    He closed his eyes, and she
straightened up. She spoke to the one-eyed man,
“Sir ….”
    “ Corporal Davies, mum, not sir,” he
replied in a hurry, his cheeks flushed at her social
gaffe.
    “ Corporal, could you help me take
the major back to his own bed?”
    “ I am far away from my own bed,” he
commented a trifle breathlessly as the corporal and a private
helped him to sit up.
    “ Nonsense. You said you were
quartered in the lady chapel. I can see it from here,” Lydia
replied. The private paled under the major’s weight, and Lydia took
a good look at him. “Private, why did you not mention your own
wound? Do sit down.” She replaced the private’s shoulder with her
own, lifting up the major and draping his arm around her. Corporal
Davies took a firm grip on the other side, and they walked him
slowly down the aisle of silent men.
    “ I mean Northumberland, where I
live,” he managed to say as they walked him along. “Just beyond
Hadrian’s Wall.” He stopped, and they stopped. “Miss Perkins,
perhaps you would like it there.”
    She laughed. “I doubt it! A place
where the sun never shines, sheets and blankets are always damp,
and where people eat oatmeal three times a day?”
    He smiled at her as they started in
motion again. “I have a very good cook, and we only have oatmeal
twice a day! Corporal, what are you grinning at?”
    “ You, sir,” the man
replied.
    “ Insubordination,” Reed muttered,
and then said nothing more. The perspiration stood out on his
forehead, and Lydia knew how much this effort at nonchalance was
costing him.
    They laid him down on his own bed,
and Corporal Davies went for the surgeon again, over his protests.
“I just need to sleep,” he insisted as she wiped his
face.
    “ And perhaps a small serving of
laudanum,” she added, pulling his blankets up to his shoulder. “To
go with your oatmeal.”
    She sat beside him to await the
surgeon, noting how at some point during the afternoon, the sun had
gone down. How long have I been here? she thought in alarm. Surely
the coachman would have come in for me. She sighed. If Mama has
allowed him to return. Perhaps I am to be punished for not
accompanying Kitty home. She frowned, wondering how far she would
have to walk.
    “ Are you late to an engagement?” the
major asked.
    Startled, she looked down at him. “I
thought you were sleeping.”
    “ With the fragrance of ‘good milled
soap’ so close?” he teased as he gritted his teeth against the
pain. The moment passed, and he stirred on his side so he could see
her better. “Miss Perkins, you had better let Corporal Davies
escort you home.”
    “ I think … at least I
hope … my coachman is outside.”
    “ If he is not, Corporal Davies will
see you home.” He turned his head toward the small table next to
the cot. “Find some coins there for a hackney.”
    “ I couldn’t.”
    “ Do it.”
    As she scooped up a few coins, Lydia
decided that Major Reed was not someone to argue with. I suppose it
comes with command, she thought. “I will pay you back, sir,” she
said.
    “ Don’t talk twaddle. You have
already given me—my battery—more than we can ever
repay.”
    She did not argue with him,
especially after he closed his eyes and the sweat sprang to his
forehead again. She knelt by him this time and dabbed at his face.
“I wish you would not talk, and for the Lord’s sake, do stay in
your bed tomorrow, and leave the Horse Guards alone, no matter how
stupid they are,” she murmured. “You are a serious trial,