Alex and Eliza: A Love Story(67)

Alas, when Alex and Larpent entered the Ford mansion, they found it deserted and frigid, the fires gone cold in their grates. The larders had been stripped bare of comestibles and beverages. Even the bottle of cognac Lafayette had given him before he went off had been pilfered from its hiding place beneath a loose floorboard in his bedroom.

When Alex was absolutely certain that there was not one thing to eat or drink in the house, nor even a single coal to start up a fire, he turned to Lieutenant Larpent with a rueful smile on his face.

“Permission to speak freely, Lieutenant.”

Larpent looked at him with confusion. Alex was his superior officer. He need ask for nothing from him.

“Uh, permission granted . . . sir?”

“God damn his soul to hell!” Alex said, and collapsed atop his bed.

“Oh, sir!” Larpent cried out. “Buck up, sir, it’s not so bad. Here, look, just let me get some tinder and I’ll have a fire going in no time.” He raced from the room and down the stairs, returning shortly with a tinder and twigs.

Alex hardly noticed him. He had shucked off his wet coat and rolled himself in his blanket like a caterpillar wrapping itself in silk, his head buried beneath his pillow. With one half-open eye he watched as Larpent knelt before the grate, expertly arranging wood shavings and splinter into a neat cone, and then striking the flint against steel in steady streams of sparks.

The men had lit a lamp when they came in, yet Larpent seemed content to start the fire from scratch, and on just his fifth spark a little glow appeared in front of him. He blew on it gently. The glow grew and sprouted a little tongue of flame. Larpent fed splinters of wood to it, with the delicacy of a farmer feeding an abandoned weanling, then twigs, then small branches. Within minutes a small fire was crackling in the grate, and a pile of larger logs suggested that the blaze would grow to a conflagration quickly.

“I must say, Lieutenant, you light a fire with admirable alacrity.”

“We didn’t have servants to light fires for us when I was a boy on the farm, sir. As the younger, I was charged with lighting the stove in the mornings while my father and older brother tended to the cows.”

“No mother to attend to the task?”

“Alas, sir, my mother died giving birth to me. My father never found a suitable replacement.”

Alex could feel the fire warming the tip of his nose, which was all that poked from the covers. He pushed the pillow back, feeling the warmth on his cheeks, his forehead.

“I, too, lost my mother when I was very young, though I was blessed to have her in my life for its first decade.”

Larpent nodded. “I sometimes think that’s worse. Having a mother, then losing her. My older brother and father miss her to this day, whereas I only wonder what she would have been like. Excuse me, sir,” he said then, and walked quickly from the room. He was back a moment later with a pair of towels.

“If we don’t get out of these wet clothes and dried off, we’ll catch our death of cold.”

Alex knew he was right, but part of him didn’t care. He had failed at today’s mission, had failed at securing a command, had failed at winning the hand of the girl he loved. When he came here as a fourteen-year-old, he had been told by everyone he met that he was going to be a great man. But all he had managed to become was the secretary of a great man.

Larpent went to look for dry clothes and came back several minutes later dressed in a mismatched and somewhat ill-fitting uniform.

“Cadged from Weston’s, Tilghman’s, and McHenry’s tack, I’m afraid,” Lieutenant Larpent explained. “Not even General Washington himself could command me back into my own uniform. Now, let me see if I can find us some provisions,” he said and left the room.

Alex changed out of his wet garments and into the dry ones. He was a miserable human being still, but at least one who didn’t feel like a drowned rat.

Larpent returned with a frown. “Not much here but salt beef and crackers,” he reported.

Alex didn’t respond. A moment later, Lieutenant Larpent cleared his throat.

“I say, sir, why don’t you come along to the party? There’ll be food there and wine and good cheer, and you look as though you could use all three.”

Alex couldn’t help but laugh. “Go to my rival’s pre-wedding celebration. Yes, that does sound like a fine time.”

“You won’t have to see him, Colonel. The party’s in the barn by Gareth’s Field. It’s a huge building. You can keep as far from him as you like.”

Alex just laughed again. But then something came to him.

“Wait. You said the barn by Gareth’s Field. The stone barn?”

“Yes, sir,” Lieutenant Larpent answered.

“But that’s the barn being used as the C Infirmary, is it not?”

“Yes, sir. It’s my understanding Colonel Livingston had the wards moved to Miss Jane Dawdry’s establishment for the evening.”

“To . . . a . . . brothel?!” Alex roared. “Are you joking with me, Lieutenant?”

“Ah, no? Sir? Colonel Livingston said that even the sick and injured need to have some fun.”

“This is outrageous!” Alex said, jumping up and dropping his blanket and rushing to his wardrobe. I’ll have him court-martialed! I’ll have him flogged! I—” He stopped in front of the open doors. “I’ll call him out.”