Carla Kelly by The Wedding Journey Read Free Book Online

matter?”
    “It’s Major Bones, isn’t it?” Nell asked quietly.
    The hospital steward nodded. “I wish you would sit down.”
    She did as he suggested, sitting next to Jesse and pulling his blanket over to cover her bare feet. “Did he call in those infamous loans?”
    Dan nodded again. He looked at Jesse. “Sir, Captain Tomlinson was sitting outside under his tent fly.” He glanced at Nell, his look apologetic. “I…I suppose Captain Mason spent the night there, but I could hear him inside the tent, talking to Bones.” His face darkened, and he started to say something, but shook his head instead.
    “Tell us all, Daniel,” Jess said.
    “Nell, he told your father he had to pay the ninety-five pounds now, before the retreat.”
    Nell gasped. “Dan! That is even more than I thought he owed!” she said. “How will I find even the tiniest part of such a sum?”
    Jess took her hand. “Let’s hear it all, Nell.”
    Dan pulled up a stool. “Your father started to cry, and confess that he did not have it. He pleaded to repay him when we reached the lines of Torres Vedras.”
    “As though he would have it there,” Nell said, her voice bitter. “That can’t have convinced Major Bones of anything.”
    Dan shook his head. “Of course it did not.”
    He shifted his weight on the stool, and it protested. Jess noticed that he could not look Nell in the eye. Here it comes, he thought. “Tell us.”
    Dan was a moment in speaking, and even then he looked at Jess. “Sir, he said he would take Nell in exchange for the debt. Just like he was dealing in cattle!” he burst out. He lowered his voice, but he still could not bring himself to look at Nell, who had gone as white as a winding cloth. “Sir, he promised to marry Nell after the retreat.”
    “But not before,” Jess said, amazed at his own calmness. “Even though we have chaplains aplenty in this army, and there is a priest behind every bush in Spain.”
    They were all silent. Nell pressed up against him, and he put his arm around her. Puny comfort, he thought, going over his own resources in his mind. We have not been paid in four months. I wonder if I have even ten pounds to my name? He thought about the family money gathering interest in Edinburgh so far away.
    “What did Bertie say to that?” he asked.
    Dan shifted again, and this time he looked at Nell. “To his credit, your father said it was an infamous bargain, and that no Christian gentleman would even consider it.”
    “Thank God,” Nell said.
    Dan frowned, then he glanced at Jess with a wry smile. “Captain, there I was, listening so hard that I forgot how much I had bled Captain Tomlinson. He’s more than usually pale, and I do not think he will want to get off his cot anytime soon.”
    “Then it will be a typical day in his career,” Jess said dryly. “Did he dismiss you?”
    “I wasn’t about to leave!” Dan declared, and had the grace to blush. “I hope you won’t tell the Chief, but I told Captain Tomlinson that I needed to take his pulse for five minutes straight now, to make sure that all his bodily humors hadn’t leeched out.”
    “Hippocrates would be honored,” Jess said, with the ghost of a smile. “At least you did not get out a rattle and dance around him like an aborigine. All right, Dan, spill the rest of this. There has to be more, or you wouldn’t look so glum.”
    “There’s more.” He looked Nell in the eye this time. “Oh, Nell, the major offered to find him a grand coffin for your mother. Said he thought he could locate a coffin suitable for a lady.” He sighed and looked down at his hands. “That was all it took.”
    How strange are the workings of guilt, Jess thought. When Audrey Mason is gone beyond his reach—or his regret, I suppose—he thinks to honor her. He had been in Spain too long to doubt the next step. Bones will pay some starving
paisano
to dig up a coffin and dump out its occupant. He had seen it before. “We must stop him,” he