“I know you’re in there,” he said, pleasantly. “Grabbing a nap when there’s work to be done. Otter is worried about you, and if he’s worried about you enough to bother me, then you’ve made your point.” Not with fists, but with a more subtle weapon—absence.
His riding crop brushed against something solid.
“Go away.” This directive was muttered from the middle of the pile of hay, and never had two words given Orion greater relief.
“I’d like to,” he replied. “I’d like to get back to tallying up my revenues and expenses, like to create my income projections for the next quarter—a cheerful, hopeful exercise—but no. I am instead required to nanny a wayward lad who has probably fallen in love with a goose girl indifferent to his charms. This happens, my boy. We all get our hearts broken and it’s the stuff of some of Louis’s best melodies.” Also the stuff of a commanding officer’s worst nightmares.
“Go away.” For Benny, that tone of voice qualified as snarl. “I ain’t talking to you.”
“Did Otter threaten to make you take a bath?” Benny didn’t stink, but neither did he regularly wash his face.
“Fetch the lady wot cooks at the Coventry. I’ll talk to ’er.”
Orion planted his arse on an overturned half barrel and considered the puzzle before him. Benny was not by nature a difficult or complicated fellow, but now he was talking in riddles.
“What lady who cooks for the Coventry?” The Coventry being a gaming hell doing business as a fancy supper club. Orion’s sister Jeanette had, for reasons known only to her, married one of the club’s co-owners several months ago. Multiple reconnaissance missions suggested the union was happy and the club thriving, which was ever so fortunate for the groom’s continued welfare.
And no, Orion was not in the least jealous. Jeanette deserved every joy life had to offer, and if Sycamore Dorning counted among her joys, Orion would find a way to be cordial to the man—when Jeanette was on hand.
“Fetch the lady with the kind eyes,” Benny said, as the hay rustled. “I won’t talk to you.”
“Miss Pearson?” Ann Pearson was an assistant cook in the vast kitchens at the Coventry. Orion had met her once under less than ideal circumstances, but like Benny, he recalled the compassion in her green eyes.
“Aye, Miss Ann. She’ll come.”
Benny’s tone rekindled Orion’s worry. The boy wasn’t having a mere pout, he was miserable. Orion nudged the hay aside with his hand.
“Benny, are you well?” More nudging and swiping at the hay revealed the boy lying on his side curled in a blanket. Not well, was the obvious answer, not well at all.
“Go away, Colonel.” Benny pulled the blanket up over his head. “Fetch Miss Ann. I ain’t tellin’ ye again.”
Ann Pearson knew her herbs, of that much Orion was certain. She had been a calm, sensible presence when Jeanette’s health had been imperiled.
“Benny, what’s amiss?” Orion asked, trying for a jocular tone. How long had the boy been in this condition, and what the hell was wrong with him?
“Fetch Miss Ann, please.” The lad was begging now. “I’m dying, Colonel. You have to fetch Miss Ann.”
Orion half-reached for the boy, prepared to extract the lad from his cocoon of wool and distress. Something stopped him.
Benny’s unwillingness to move, his desperate rudeness to the person who provided him food and shelter, his decision to hide in the place that signified safety to him, all converged to support one conclusion. Benny wasn’t having a pout or enduring a case of too much winter ale. He exuded the same quality of hopeless suffering common to soldiers wounded in battle, half fearing death and half-tempted by it. Orion had seen enough battles and their aftermaths to recognize the condition.
Benny was injured.
Seriously injured.
“I’ll send for Miss Ann. Don’t move, boy. Stay right where you.”
Orion half-slid down the ladder, spooked both horses, and bellowed for Louis to attend him immediately.
“She’s here!” Louis’s shout nearly startled Rye out of his boots. “I brung the lady!”
“Good work,” Orion said, going to the top of the ladder. “Miss Pearson if you could join us up here? Louis fetch the lantern and then see to your supper.”
The stable had grown dark while Orion had waited, and memories had crowded in. How many hours had he spent in the infirmary tents, listening to a dying man’s final ramblings or writing out the last letter the fellow would send home? How many times had he refused a fallen soldier’s entreaty for a single, quick bullet?
“Colonel,” Miss Pearson said, arriving at the top of the ladder. “Good evening.”
Orion took a basket from her and waited while the lady dealt with her skirts and climbed from the ladder into the hay loft. Louis passed up the lantern and tried for a gawk. He climbed back down when Rye aimed a glower at him.
That Benny did not want an audience was clear.
“Miss Ann has come,” Orion said. “You will do as she says, Benny, and if she says to send for the surgeon, we send for the surgeon.” No soldier ever wanted to fall into the surgeon’s hands, much less commend another to that torment.
“I ain’t ’avin’ no bloody sawbones,” Benny muttered. “Go away, Colonel.”
“You’re insubordinate,” Orion said, brushing a hand over the boy’s brow. “Mind Miss Ann or you’ll be scrubbing pots for a week, lad.”
Miss Pearson watched this exchange with an air of puzzlement. “Where is the injury?”
“He won’t tell me,” Orion said, straightening. “Won’t let me move him, won’t stir from his nest, but there is a wound.”
“If you will give us some privacy, I’ll see what I can do.”
Orion regarded the miserable child curled in the hay. “This boy is dear to me. Please spare no effort to bring him right.” He would not embarrass Benny with a closer approximation of the truth:
