"Can you assist the gentleman up to the blue room? He's become overtired."
"Of course, Miss. Glad to help." He put his wrinkled but still strong hand on the young man's shoulder. "This way, Sir, please."
The tall stranger dwarfed her servant, but Caleb got his shoulder in under his arm and began to help him from the room.
"Good night, Sir," she said quietly.
He paused. "Sarah, may I ask one more favor?"
"Certainly."
"Can you please play for about ten minutes, to lull me to sleep?"
"Yes, I'd be delighted."
"Thank you for everything. You've been a wonderful friend. I shall never forget your kindness. And I'm sorry--"
"No more apologies. Off you go. I shall see you in the morning."
She took the hand he offered and patted it. She followed them into the hall and watched as Caleb led him up the stairs as patiently as a shepherd leading a newborn lamb.
She listened while the old servant showed her guest to his room. Then she heard the stranger disrobe and get into the bed with a creak and sigh of relief.
"Good night, Sir."
"Good night, Caleb."
She waited until her servant came down the stairs, and motioned silently for him to come into the sitting room, where she seated herself at the pianoforte and began to play a Bach air.
"Well?"
"Well what, Miss?"
"Is he all settled?" she found herself saying, though that was not the question uppermost in her mind.
"Yes, he seems to be."
"What do you think of him?" she ventured to ask.
The reply was not one she ever expected to hear. "He will make me thank God every day that I haven't suffered the way he has."
Sarah stared at him in wonder. "What would make you say that?"
Caleb shook his head.
"Why, what did he tell you?"
"He never said a word. He just enjoyed the bath, and groaned from time to time."
Sarah thumped her temple with the heel of her right hand. "His headache. It slipped my mind. How thoughtless of me. Caleb, I need some vinegar and brown paper."
"I'll fetch it, Miss." He turned to go, but she called him back.
"Caleb, er, does he have tattoos like Mr. Jonathan's?"
He nodded. "They're not exactly like his, but yes. On his arms and legs, and a small George and Dragon over his heart."
Sarah sighed. Caleb could not read, though she had tried to get him to learn. There was no point in asking what the man's name was and where he came from. All of the Rakehells had tattooed their names and home villages on their arms and legs in case the worst had happened and they had been killed in the war.
She tried to recall any special friend the other men had made during the war that Jonathan might have mentioned. The original set of Rakehells had been Clifford, Jonathan and Thomas, all schoolfellows together at Eton and then Oxford, before enlisting to fight Bonaparte. In both places they had added to their set of Radicals, with brave and decent men like Dr. Blake Sanderson, Michael Avenel, whose title was Viscount Glyne, and his brother Randall, Randall's best friend Matthew Dane, and the famous barrister Alistair Grant.
She knew the Rakehells had served with many good men, and there was of course talk of Thomas's Irish cousin Stewart Fitzgerald, the Duke of Clancar, finally coming home after years abroad. The Elthams were going to meet up with him on the south coast of Ireland during their grand tour of all their estates. This could not be him, could it? But no, he had been described as a career soldier, while this man had more of a.... More of a business-like and yet scholarly manner, she decided.
Sarah also recollected with a shudder that the Rakehells had also met some dreadful scoundrels. But this man seemed to be more than decent, just confused and ill.
Who could he be? Now that the war was over, all the soldiers were coming home from the Peninsula as fast as arrangements could be made. But between able-bodied men and the wounded, and the forces being kept in France, Spain and Portugal to wrap things up, it would be a long time before they were all home again.
She was eagerly awaiting news from Dr. Sanderson about when he was going to return to take up the reins of her clinic for fallen women. Viscount Glyne was a faithful correspondent, but sadly they still hadn't heard from Michael as to when he would be re-patriated.
There had of course been two big battles at Toulouse and Bayonne in mid-April, but the details of them had been eclipsed by the even more momentous news about the battle for Paris and Napoleon being forced to abdicate as Emperor by his own marshals.
Sarah was sure she had overheard Jonathan and Thomas talking about some friends who had disappeared, whom they were worried about, not all that long ago. Perhaps this was one of the friends? He had obviously been badly injured. Perhaps it had been in one of those battles?