For Your Arms Only by Linden, Caroline (best fiction books to read .TXT) 📗

town, comfortable and clean, and somehow kept moving.

The town was one giant army camp. Men in uniform were everywhere, and many houses bore marks on the door indicating wounded were quartered within. Whatever hospitals the surgeons set up would be overwhelmed. Alec hobbled through the streets, trying to find his way. His best hope was to run into a friendly face, another officer who could direct him and help him. The journey had severely taxed his strength, and he didn’t want to join the ill and maimed left to fend for themselves in the streets.

By luck a familiar figure crossed his path before long. Hurrying down the street, some loaves of bread under his arm, came James Peterbury, a junior officer who hailed from Hertfordshire like himself. They had been in the same division under Uxbridge. There was a bright pink weal across his cheek, but otherwise he seemed in good health, walking unaided and without visible bandages. Alec’s spirits lifted. He hated the aftermath of battle, learning which of his mates and friends had died. At least Peterbury was well.

“Peterbury,” he managed to call out, his voice hoarse from exertion. “James.”

The young officer stopped and turned, his gaze sweeping the street. Alec raised one hand. Peterbury froze. His mouth dropped open and he stood goggling.

“Good to see you again,” Alec added with a weary smile.

Peterbury came across the street, eyes still popping from his head. “Hayes?” he whispered in astonishment. “Is—Is it really you? Alec Hayes?”

He nodded. “More or less. I suppose—”

James jumped as if prodded from behind, dropping his bread, then seized Alec’s arm and began pulling him off the street into a nearby narrow alley. Alec sucked in his breath at the pain that shot through his arm and down his side at the rough handling, and started to curse when Peterbury shocked him by slapping a hand over his mouth.

“Shh, man, hush!” he ordered. He glanced around nervously. “Keep your voice down, for the love of God!”

“Why?” Alec frowned but lowered his voice. “What has happened?”

But Peterbury paid no attention. He peered closely at Alec’s face, craning his neck from side to side to see every angle, much to Alec’s bemusement. “I survived, as you can see,” he finally said. “Is it so very shocking?”

Peterbury made another shushing motion with his hands. “Quiet,” he said, almost harshly this time. He bowed his head and pressed his fists to his forehead. “Oh, Lord…”

This was not what he had expected from a friend, even one taken utterly off guard. Alec shifted his weight on the crutch and waited, an ominous feeling flooding him. What could be so wrong?

At last Peterbury looked up. “You’re dead,” he informed Alec, sounding as though he disapproved mightily that it was not so. “Your name was on the casualty lists.”

“But I’m not. Obviously. A farmwoman picked me out of a pile of corpses and took me home out of pity.” Alec cocked his head and forced a halfhearted grin. “You don’t seem quite as overjoyed by the news as I might have hoped. Has my brother already promised you my hunter?”

The other man just shook his head. “No. No, no, no, no, no. But now…” His voice trailed off. “Not that I was happy when I thought—but this—Oh Lord.”

“James,” said Alec, growing annoyed, “what the devil are you blathering about?”

“You’re better off dead,” his friend said then. “I hate to shock you by saying that, but…the papers. They found the papers in your effects. My God, man; I don’t want to believe it, but how could you?”

James’s shock seemed to be wearing off, exposing an anger Alec didn’t understand. Better off dead—this, from one of his oldest mates, a man who had been his friend since they were mischievous lads? “How could I what? You’re making no sense. And what is the news? I heard Bonaparte fled the field, but what of the Royal Dragoons? What of Lacey, Ponsonby, and Uxbridge?”

In the dim light, James’s face hardened. “Uxbridge has lost his leg. Ponsonby is dead, and so is Lacey. And you’ll wish that farmwoman had left you where you lay, if anyone else should see you. Why the hell have you come back?”

“It is my duty,” said Alec through dry lips. Ponsonby and Will Lacey, dead. It felt like a physical blow to his chest.

“You’ll be shot, you know. If you leave now, I won’t tell anyone, out of respect for your family, but if you ever return—”

“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,” Alec interrupted. “I’ve been lying in a farmhouse for more than a fortnight, incapable of walking, and have heard no news at all, let alone why I might be shot for returning to my regiment as I ought to!”

“The letters.” Peterbury clenched his jaw. “To the French. You should have burned them.”

For a moment he just stared. “Letters?”

Some of his ignorance must have impressed Peterbury. He hesitated, and a frown creased his forehead. “You know what I mean.”

Woodenly Alec shook his head. His arm had gone numb from leaning so long on the crutch, and when he tried to shift his weight he almost lost his balance and fell. With one hand he groped for the grimy brick wall behind him, and leaned heavily against it. “I’ve no idea what letters you mean—to the French? Are you accusing me of…treason?” He whispered the last word as the implications crashed in on him. His breath felt short as he waited, prayed, for Peterbury to contradict it.

“Yes.”

“And you believe it?” Alec was appalled. If he hadn’t felt light-headed from the long walk, he would have thrown his fist into Peterbury’s face. Except that there seemed to be two of Peterbury at the moment.

Peterbury hesitated. “I didn’t want to.”

“It’s not true!” His legs were shaking. With a curse Alec gave up and collapsed, sliding down the wall to fall on his knees. The makeshift crutch clattered to the ground. “Bloody Christ, James. How could you?” He pressed one hand to his side,