“After we took Flushing, he carried man after man to our makeshift hospitals. He would deposit one and immediately leave to get another.”
“Youhavetold me this story,” I said with relief. Perhaps we could move on to another topic. I knew Papa liked Captain Calder so much he wanted me to try to improve his chances with Hattie, but I simply couldn’t do it. He was possibly in love with another womanandhe’d kissed me.
Even if he was telling the truth and he had only the most honorable of intentions toward Hattie, it would be excruciating for him to join this family. When I was with the Pryors, I was comfortable. We all loved and cared for one another and we could be ourselves together. Captain Calder would ruin that. The only way I was going to be able to forget that kiss was if I simply never saw him again. It was the only answer. Everything would have been better if the two of us could have departed that croft and remained strangers. “He brought back what? A dozen men?”
“Yes, but I haven’t told you of the last one he brought in. I’ve shielded you from it. Most of the men had stopped looking for wounded, but not Captain Calder—he stayed out half an hourlonger than anyone else, and when he returned, he was carrying a man not much older than a boy.
“I immediately sent two men to relieve him of his burden, but he wouldn’t have it. He accepted help from one of them, but wouldn’t relinquish the soldier completely. The boy didn’t look good. I wasn’t even certain he was alive. I’ll spare you the details, but my guess is he hadn’t been brought in earlier because other soldiers passing him must have assumed he’d already perished.
“When they arrived at the hospital, I expected Captain Calder to lay him down and go out to look for more. I’d been prepared to stop him before he became a patient himself. But he didn’t. He stayed with the boy. He made certain the surgeons didn’t overlook him, and when they refused to operate on him, he demanded they at least dose him with laudanum.”
Mama made a choking sound, and I swallowed hard. Papa never would have told this story while he was in the service. I’d rather not be hearing it now. It was easier to think of Captain Calder only as a man who dined with us each evening and not as a man who’d lived through battles and seen death. It was easier not to think of Papa in the same situations as well.
Papa squeezed my shoulder and I started. “He stayed with that boy for twelve hours, Evelyn. After a day of fighting and hours of bringing in the wounded, he wouldn’t leave his side.” His voice quieted. “I did everything but command him to go to bed and do you know what he said to me?”
Did I want to know? It was going to be something brave and kind, and it was easier to think of Captain Calder as a man here to woo Hattie while also at least half in love with another woman. I didn’t want him to be the best match for her. If he was, then I was meddling in a way that could hurt Hattie once again.
“What?” Mama asked, her voice quavering.
“He looked me in the eye and said, ‘No one should ever be left alone.’” Papa cleared his throat, emotions catching in his voice at the memory. “‘Especially not when hope is gone.’”
I took in a long, slow breath, hoping to steady myself. Could I have mistaken Captain Calder’s intentions with Hattie? The man Papa had just described—the man Papa had always described—didn’t seem to be the kind that would be in love with one woman while pursuing another. He’d been delusional in that cottage, and while his anguish and longing had seemed genuine, what if everything had been a result of the fever? Maybe May wasn’t real, or perhaps it hadn’t been a person he’d been calling out for. Perhaps he’d wanted something and was starting a sentence he was never able to finish. All of my prejudices against Captain Calder came from one night when he’d been in the throes of a fever. Judging him only on that seemed suddenly unjustifiable. And if I’d been wrong about him, was my discomfort over the fact that he’d kissed me when he was out of his mind enough to keep him from Hattie?
I sighed heavily.
Most likely not.
I turned so I could face them. Mama had tears in her eyes. They both looked at me expectantly, as if I should add to what I’d said of the captain earlier. They wanted Captain Calder to be given the respect and the opportunity they felt he deserved. They must have noticed my efforts to keep him from Hattie. “I shall try to see the best in him, Papa. It sounds as though that won’t be hard.”
They both smiled with relief.
Which didn’t make me feel more confident about my decision. As vexing as it had been to oppose Captain Calder at every turn, it was going to be at least as taxing to befriend him. First of all, there was my pride, I hated swallowing it with a passion and I would have to. If I suddenly became kind toCaptain Calder, he was certain to notice. And then what? Was I supposed to tell him I’d come to my senses and realized he was an honorable man after all?
I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t give the man compliments and allow myself tolikehim.
That night and both of our actions during it still held power over me. My memories of it were an ever burning ember I’d only been able to keep at bay by dousing it with willful hostility. I’d held Captain Calder when I’d thought he was dying. I knew he had a scar on his chest that matched the one through his eyebrow. He’d kissed me and I’d spent nearly a week reflecting on the softness of his lips and the tenderness of his touch.
How was I going to replace hostility with friendship and still keep that ember from bursting into flame?
And the worst of it was I had no choice but to do it. All of my excuses were only going to affect me, and this house party was never about me. It was about Hattie. And so my pride would be swallowed, and I would find another way to push aside the thoughts of that night for her sake.
16
CAPTAIN JOHN CALDER
Charlie foundme in the stables, waiting for my horse to be saddled, and stopped me with one soulful question.
“You’re leaving?” he asked and I could feel the disappointment in every syllable.
“No,” I lied. Or rather, it wasn’t a lie any longer. The moment he asked the question, I knew I would stay. “I was curious about your father’s horses.”
That made his eyes light up. “That one is Charcoal,” he said of the horse whose nose I rubbed. “He was bred by a Herod stallion.”
He then proceeded to tell me the lineage of each mount. Charlie was—unsurprisingly, given that he was General Blackwell’s son—extremely knowledgeable about horses.
When we reached Scout’s stall, I told him what little I knew of Scout’s breeding.
“Would he like a brush?” Charlie asked, motioning his head to Scout.
