Honor Before Heart Page 3

  The stiffness in her shoulders melted away a little. “I was happy to do it. You saved Cliste, after all.”

  A tail thumped to the left near his head. He turned to see the huge gray hound lying beside him, head upon its massive paws. “She belongs to you then? Quite an amazin’ creature you have there.”

  The tail thumped harder.

  Lips turning up into a smile that lit her radiant face, she patted the hound on the head. “Aye, that she is.”

  Reluctantly, he withdrew his hand from her arm. Tempting as she was, he couldn’t allow a brush with death to compromise his sense of honor and propriety. “My apologies for being so forward. ’Tis just that I have never brushed shoulders with death so closely. Since we’ve no one to properly introduce us, I suppose I shall have to make due. I am Sean MacBranain, Corporal with the 69th regiment. And who do I have the pleasure of addressin’?”

  Pink brightened her cheeks, taking a bit of the haunted look out of her eyes. “Ashlinn O’Brian, nurse of the 69th regiment.”

  “’Tis a pleasure to meet your acquaintance, Ms. O’Brian,” he said.

  “And yours, sir.”

  The moment her eyes dropped in a demur, ladylike fashion, he looked away as well. He had to, else he would run the risk of staring at her. She captivated him more than he wanted to admit. From the earthen ceiling and walls and the nearby rush of water, he guessed they were hidden away in a hollow somewhere very near the river. What a nurse was doing way out here amidst the battle, he couldn’t fathom. Slowly, and with far more care this time, he started to sit up.

  “We have got to get back to the regiment,” he said through gritted teeth.

  Hunger roiled through him at the movement, morphing quickly into pain, a lot of it.

  “Easy, easy,” the woman warned as she reached out to help him.

  The hound whined and inched closer, crawling on her belly.

  Once he achieved a sitting position, he had to stop. Struggling to draw breath through the haze of pain, he blinked and breathed deep until the darkness framing his vision went away. The woman’s hands were like brands upon his arms, wonderfully hot, but almost too hot.

  “Your hands are so hot.”

  He didn’t realize he’d spoken the words aloud until she made a small sound between a grunt and a laugh. “’Tis warm out for sure, but my hands only feel that way because you lost so much blood.”

  The sunlight upon the ground behind her seemed to have retreated a bit since he’d first awoken. That or time was playing tricks on him. “How long was I out?”

  Her head turned in the direction of the light. “Two nights and almost two days now.”

  Heart pounding out a rhythm a drummer boy would be hard pressed to keep up with, he pushed himself to a knee. “The regiment…”

  Dipping under his good arm, she helped him stand. “Careful of your head; the roof is low.”

  Hunched from the pain twisting his guts, he had no need to worry about striking his head. He couldn’t stand up straight if he wanted to, which he most certainly did not. One hand sliding around his waist, below his wound enough to make him blush had he more blood in him, the woman stabilized him. The touch was so inappropriate, so improperly familiar, that he started to draw away. The world swam. Moving faster than such a large creature should be able to, the hound was suddenly at his other side, pushing her muzzle beneath his hand.

  “The 69th has withdrawn to Harrison’s Landing,” Ashlinn said.

  His heart picked back up a frantic rhythm. “But it seemed we were winnin’.”

  “We did. They withdrew after the Rebels retreated.”

  Sean shook his head. “That makes little sense.”

  “True enough, but I am certain of it. I walked back through enough of the soldiers to know.”

  She let go of him long enough to put her satchel and coat on and grab a medical bag. When she supported him again he tried to think of her warmth, her nearness, for what it was—a nurse assisting a patient, nothing more. It helped clear his mind and sharpen his focus, which was a double-edged sword. Relief over their victory became eclipsed by the trepidation brought on from what he had to ask next.

  “How many dead?”

  Head dropping, she started to walk him toward the entrance to their little alcove. The way her shoulders stiffened beneath his arm told him he wasn’t going to like her answer long before she spoke. For a while, though, all he could focus on was the lancing pain each step sent up into his side.

  “A lot, Sean.”

  The familiarity with which she spoke to him, along with the sorrow darkening her voice, told him everything her hidden face wouldn’t.

  “So where is it you are from, Ms. O’Brian?” He had to say something to drown out the sound of his manic heart.

  As if sensing his distress, Cliste pushed her huge head higher beneath his hand. Her soft gray fur caressed his rough fingers, soothing him in the way only an animal could.

  “New York.”

  Thoughts torn between her and the battlefield they moved closer to, he had to force a smile. “Thought I recognized that accent. But for a moment there, I swear I almost heard a touch of Irish in it.”

  She made a sound that was close to a laugh. “Aye, but my family has not immigrated as recently as you, from the sounds of it. My teachers in New York insisted on weeding out the ‘detestable brogue’ in my voice, as they put it. But upon hearing you, I find I rather like it.”

  A true and easy smile came to his lips. “English bastards they must have been.”

  “Aye, they were. Careful of the brush now.”

  They left the small alcove behind and worked their way through the leafy green brush that choked the riverbank. His skin began to crawl and his muscles tightened with the desire to turn back to the safety of their hidden place. But he couldn’t. He wouldn’t. Swallowing hard, he pushed through the last of the brush and laid eyes on Malvern Hill. His breath sucked in hard.

  Bodies numbering in the hundreds lay strewn across the small hill and the field before it, painting the once green landscape crimson with blood and gore. Of those close enough to him to make out, he didn’t see any blue uniforms lying among the gray. A few living moved among the dead, gathering them up and hauling them off. In the fading light of dusk it was hard to tell, but Sean thought their uniforms were gray. Thankfully, none of them seemed close enough to see him and Ashlinn hovering by the river’s edge.

  “We collected the dead as we returned to Harrison’s Landing, and as you can see, the Rebels have begun to collect theirs as well,” Ashlinn whispered.

  “Then that means…” He couldn’t finish, couldn’t force the words out his constricted throat.

  From the amount of bodies still on the field and from what he remembered of the battle, there had to have been thousands dead on both sides. Thousands. The realization struck him with the force of a cannon.

  So many of his men dead…his knees went weak, making him rely on Ashlinn to hold him upright. Whining, Cliste pressed close to his side and rubbed her head against his leg. Both the warm woman against him and the concerned dog at his side helped bring him back from the brink of a breakdown. Now wasn’t the time to lose it, not when his life wasn’t the only one at stake.

  “We have to get out of here,” he whispered, eyes darting about in search of the best route.

  Plenty of brush grew along the river that they could dash into and hide if need be. Ashlinn nodded and started to move that direction as if reading his mind. Her arm was firm around his waist, offering as much support as her small frame could. Just enough of a drizzle came from the gray clouds above to leach the worst of the heat from the day. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to obscure them. But, considering the closest living person Sean could make out was too far away to even shoot at, chances were good that he and Ashlinn would blend into the scenery. He hoped.

  As if sensing what they were about, Cliste slinked along before them, tail low,
head swinging back and forth, checking the scents in the air. Each step was like a fresh stab in the side, but Sean took the pain and buried it deep within, not letting out so much as a whimper. He didn’t want to make Ashlinn worry. They couldn’t stop, and he didn’t want to risk her trying to talk him into it. By the time they reached the edge of the first forested area, he was gasping from the pain, unable to hide it any longer. Ashlinn pulled him into the cover of the trees and leaned him against the rough bark of a pine.

  As she moved his coat aside to check his wound, his gaze traveled back to the field of battle. The hill still loomed in the distance like a nightmare that refused to be banished. They were far enough away now that he couldn’t see or smell the bodies, but such things were etched upon his memory. From the looks of it, they had barely traveled over a mile and already darkness began to steal across the land. While night would bring much needed cover, it would also make traveling on unknown terrain more difficult. They could follow the swath the Union army had cut through the landscape, but then they risked discovery by Rebel troops.

  Even alone Sean would be reluctant to take such a risk. Knowing what the soldiers would do to Ashlinn if they captured her, there was no way he would risk it. During the past week of fighting, he and his regiment had traveled around this area enough that he was confident he could find his way back to Harrison’s Landing without the use of the marching road.

  “You are bleeding again. We need to find somewhere to stop for the night,” Ashlinn whispered.

  “Aye, but we have to find a better place to hide.”

  She nodded and ducked under his arm again. Pausing only to relieve a dead soldier of his pack and gun, they traveled deeper into the forest. They communicated with gestures and looks instead of words whenever they could. The way she looked around, listened, and the ease with which she kept quiet impressed Sean. But it also made him wonder how often she traveled in enemy territory and why. Traveling with the medical wagons in the regiment surely wouldn’t imbue her with such skills.

  Soon the forest surrounded them, the river birches becoming so thick the rain scarcely fell upon them anymore. The patter of it upon the diamond-shaped leaves overhead began to lull Sean into a sleepy daze. His feet were soon stumbling along in the near dark. When one boot caught beneath a fallen branch, Ashlinn’s strong hands were all that kept him from sprawling face first to the forest floor. Agony shot through his side as his muscles bunched in preparation for an impact that didn’t come.

  “’Tis enough; we have to stop. Your wound is bleeding again,” she whispered as she inspected his side.

  Out of breath as he was from the pain, he could hardly argue.

  The panting of a dog preceded Cliste’s emergence from the dense undergrowth that choked the tightly packed birch trees before them. Tail wagging, she dashed up to Ashlinn, licked her nose without so much as a foot leaving the ground, then dashed back the way she had come. The dog’s antics were a stark reminder of her sheer size, which suddenly made Sean very grateful that she had taken to him. Ashlinn turned them to follow the hound.

  Shrubs and ferns pulled at them from every direction as they plunged into the thick undergrowth. The deeper they went, the darker it became as the trees formed a complete canopy overhead. Even the small drizzle of rain that had been making it through ceased to fall upon them. Unfortunately, moisture was so thick upon the air that it coated everything and brushed off onto them. Despite the warm July evening, a chill began to creep across Sean’s skin and into his bones.

  They came upon the twisting branches of a sycamore tree, many of which were low enough that they nearly touched the ground. The tree was so choked in by birch that he didn’t see it until they were nearly upon it. Leaving him to lean against one of the lowest branches, Ashlinn began digging in the pack they had picked up off the battlefield. Smooth bark supported him while the huge fanlike leaves with three points tickled his arms. Moisture transferred from the leaves to him, making him shiver when it touched his bare forearm. He drew his arm back into his coat as he watched Ashlinn.

  She pulled out a small package of paper from which the strong scent of salted pork wafted, making his mouth water. Another larger package followed—hardtack, no doubt—then a folded bit of stiff material that had to be the dead soldier’s dog tent. The sight of the tent brought Sean almost as much relief as the scent of the pork. Cold had seeped so deep into his bones that he began to shiver, which made his arm and side ache horribly. If he could just get dry, he might not be so bloody cold.

  Like an experienced soldier, Ashlinn draped the tent—which was really no more than a large square of treated fabric—over one of the sycamore branches that hung nearly to the ground and staked out its four corners. Such skills were rare among the gentle ladies he had known in his life. A smile tried to turn up his lips but his muscles were so tired they refused to complete the action. She reached out to take the musket from his hands. He hesitated, but the stern look she gave him convinced him it was in his best interest not to argue.

  To his relief, she placed the weapon inside the tent, then turned back to offer him her hands. Undignified though it was, he allowed her to help him to his knees and then into the tent. By the time he was laying on his back staring up at where the tent draped the branch, his chest heaved with each breath. Despite his exhaustion, he repositioned the musket so that it would be easy to access should he need it. Ashlinn crawled in beside him and Cliste lay down at his head. With the hound blocking the breeze and Ashlinn’s warm legs against his, he instantly warmed a bit. It wasn’t quite enough to make him stop shivering, but it helped.

  “You are shivering in this awful heat. ’Tis not a good thing,” Ashlinn said under her breath.

  Drawing a knife from her belt, she cut the bandages around his midsection and peeled them away. Propped up on the pack, he watched mutely as she cleaned away the blood and checked his stitches. When she withdrew the bottle of iodine tincture from her satchel he took a deep breath.

  “’Tis best to fight off infection. I will not use much this time.”

  Her whispering voice softened her hard edges, making her seem more human. The sound sent a thrill of heat through him, one that was almost enough to make him forget her words. Distracted as he was, he didn’t have time to brace before she poured the scalding liquid onto his wound. Groaning, he sat up a bit more and looked closer at it. After she wiped away the liquid, he saw that no pus or drainage came from the wound. Concern gnawed at him.

  “’Tis not infected, is it? Shouldn’t there be pus?”

  “No, there should not.” The words sounded clipped and short, barely a whisper.

  Her brows pulled together and her eyes narrowed to slits.

  “But ’tis not that a good thing? ’Tis the bad humors comin’ out, right?”

  He didn’t know much about medicine, wounds, and such, but he had heard more than one field doctor say that about pus.

  “That is a load of shite as big as the doctors who spread it. Pus is a sign of infection. Think of how many soldiers you have seen lose more of a limb or scar terribly with wounds that had it.”

  For a moment he thought back and realized she was right.

  “How do you know such things?”

  “My da was a doctor who studied the forward-thinking teachings of the time. My mum was a nurse who studied science. I watched and learned alongside them.” Her voice dropped lower as she spoke until Sean had to strain to hear her. Pain laced each word.

  He laid a hand on her arm. “What happened to them?”

  “Cholera,” she said in a voice void of emotion.

  Terrible as it was, it was a noble end compared to some. He didn’t dare say that, though. His own shameful demons would remain just that, his own. Putting on a tight smile that didn’t reach her eyes, she patted his hand where it sat upon her arm.

  “I need you to sit up for a moment so I can rebandage the wound.”

  Dwarfed within his big hands, her
s didn’t look like they could lift a man such as himself, but they did so with ease. Though she may not look as stalwart as most of the nurses he had come across, she most certainly proved herself to be. She placed a piece of pristine white cotton cloth against his wound, then wrapped it, going completely around his waist.

  “Will you not run out of wrap by usin’ fresh material?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Aye, but if I use the old material it could introduce contaminants to your wound.”

  Head cocking, he raised an eyebrow at her. “Most doctors would say they cannot waste material in the midst of war.”

  Copying his one eyebrow raise, she placed her wrist against his forehead. “Aye, and ’tis why most of their patients die. Hmmm, you have a bit of a fever. I think I saw some yarrow a ways back. You rest here while I go fetch it.”

  She started to rise and turn for the opening of the tent. One hand going to his side in anticipation of the pain, Sean sat up, grabbing her arm with his other hand. It felt wicked to touch her bare arm, wicked and wonderful.

  “Don’t, please, ’tis too dangerous.”

  The look she gave him reminded him of one his mum used to give him right before she chastised him. “I can take care of myself. I have been a nurse in this war for over two years now.”

  He tightened his grip when she tried to pull away. “I have no doubt you are quite capable, but we are far from the protection of the regiment.”

  Her eyes softened, her hand covering his. Warmth seeped from her skin into him, giving him an idea. “Please do not leave me. I am so cold.”

  Nodding, she sat down beside him. Heat poured into him from where her legs touched his, pulling a sigh of pleasure from him. He turned toward her until his wound pinched so much he had to stop, then curled around that warmth as much as he could. A resigned sounding sigh eased from her.