Lady Violet Enjoys a Frolic by Grace Burrowes

Author:Grace Burrowes [Burrowes, Grace]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grace Burrowes

Chapter Eight

“They are obsessed with what is likely nothing more than unfortunate coincidence,” St. Sevier said, pacing the bedroom in his shirtsleeves. “A porcelain shepherdess blown off the mantel when a window was left open has become proof of enemy snipers in the undergrowth.”

“Porcelain is heavy, St. Sevier.”

“Then a maid was clumsy when dusting, a footman not careful enough when taking a portrait down for cleaning. Rutland’s answer to everything is to sack somebody, and MacNeil, O’Dea, and Jones are losing patience with him.”

I had changed into my nightclothes, taken down my hair, and tended to my ablutions, while St. Sevier had muttered in a combination of French and English and paced like a caged panther.

“Rutland knows more than he’s letting on,” I said, taking the stool before the vanity. “Will you braid my hair for me?”

“Yes,” St. Sevier said, striding across the room. “Yes, I will braid your gorgeous hair, and that will soothe my temper. Rutland wanted to sack Thaddeus Bevins without even speaking to the man. Bevins tramped through miles of mud, endured on bad rations for years, almost lost his eyesight and his arm for the glory of Good King George, and Rutland nearly turned him off without a character or notice.”

I passed St. Sevier the brush. “Rutland will say the Wood is not an eleemosynary institution, and if Bevins has been negligent, he doesn’t deserve his job.”

My father would say the same thing, doubtless, but he would not sack a loyal retainer without severance, character, or warning. Not the done thing.

“When will Bevins return?” I asked.

“A week or so. This place seethes, Violet, like an army camp can seethe. While serving under Rutland, I treated much misery that had little to do with war itself. Wives suffering the ill effects of male tempers, men poisoned half to death by too much bad drink. Outbreaks of dysentery, measles, mumps, chicken pox, and worse.”

He paused in his brushing, his gaze clearly on the past. “Rutland was recovering from a case of smallpox when I first arrived. The army itself began to strike me as an illness. Because the mission of defeating the Corsican was so desperate, much decency and civility were allowed to lapse.”

“Isn’t that military life in general? A hundred lashes for a missing button and so forth?”

St. Sevier resumed wielding the brush with a gentle touch. “Wellington exerted an odd blend of respect for tradition and basic pragmatism regarding military discipline. The typical English model of command was to ensure the enlisted men were more afraid of their superior officers than of the enemy. The German school of thought says an army should be forged along fraternal bonds, such that an honorable soldier would never leave his brothers-in-arms to fight on without him, irrespective of rank.”

“That feels good. Felix has mentioned this topic in passing. Napoleon was very popular with his troops, wasn’t he?”

“Some of them literally marched to and from Moscow in bare feet in the dead of winter for him. He made the French army the jewel in the empire’s crown.

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