18__
______, England
The Earl of _______ paced in the breakfast room. “Where is Justin?” he asked, pulling his grandfather’s gold pocket watch out to consult it.
The Countess of _____ calmly sipped her tea. “He was out riding at dawn.”
“Well, he certainly got over his London hours quickly,” the Earl gruffed.
“You know that he loves the countryside, my dear. Girls, you need to finish up,” she said to her daughters who were nibbling kibbles and toast. “Our coach leaves in half an hour.”
“You are not seriously planning to have the girls go to the hospital, Evelyn. We have discussed this.”
“George, how do you plan to pass anything in the House without supporting your own daughters in their endeavors?” Evelyn Fairchild, Countess of Winchester put her empty teacup on the table and stood.
“I am still not sure supporting women’s suffrage is the right thing for me to advocate. It makes me a laughing stock, you know.”
“But you know it’s the right thing, and that is one of the reasons I love you, my dear,” his wife laughed and kissed his cheek.
“The children!” The earl muttered, but he was obviously pleased with his wife’s affections.
“Oh yes, ‘children,’” Evelyn beamed at her twenty-year-old daughters, “it is time to get your reticules and bonnets and head out.”
Ladies Ava and Annabelle Fairchild pushed back from the breakfast table and kissed their father before hurrying to their rooms for their things. The early June day was warm, so they wouldn’t need their pelisses today. Even though they had just returned to the estate from their first London season the afternoon before, they were both anxious to greet the day. Countess Winchester had arranged for them to volunteer with wounded soldiers at the hospital.
As the girls climbed the stairs to the room they insisted on sharing, Annabelle said, “Oh, Ava, you’re not going to wear your glasses today, are you?”
“Don’t be silly, Annie, I can hardly read to the poor young men without them, can I?”
“Reading? I am going to help mamma make lap blankets for them. Don’t you want to help us?”
“Oh yes, with my excellent hand at embroidery, I could make flowers to trim them. No, thank you, I shall read. Surely even injured young men can still listen to a good story?”
“It depends, Ava,” Annabelle returned, checking her reflection in the mirror as she tied on her new cream colored bonnet with silk flowers and matching pink ribbons. Annabelle was the beauty of the two. No one could believe that Ava and Annabelle Fairchild were twins. They looked nothing alike. Annabelle had a perfect, peaches and cream complexion, blue eyes, and bouncy blonde curls which her maid had swept up into a loose knot, with curls coming down around her face.
Ava had brown hair and blue eyes, which members of the Ton found unsettling; they expected her to have brown eyes to match her hair. Her lashes were dark, and her complexion dark, favoring her father. It didn’t help that she persistently took long walks in the sun without her parasol. Her hair was straight and fine. When she was in the country, she preferred to wear it in a single braid, coiled at the back of her head. When she had been a child, her mother had tried to have her hair curled with irons heated on the fire. The attempts had merely singed her hair, leading to smoking and an unpleasant odor. So, Countess Winchester had sighed and let it be.
The earl and countess of Winchester had made a love match, which they realized was unusual for members of the Ton. They did not expect that their daughters would necessarily be so lucky, and neither did Ava or Annabelle. Even though they witnessed the affection of their parents’ marriage, it was unusual that arranged marriages blossomed into the love that Evelyn and George felt for each other. And despite George’s efforts in the House of Lords on behalf of women’s rights, he didn’t expect his daughters to choose their own husbands. He wanted them to be able, eventually, to share property ownership with their husbands and eventually to be able to inherit, but reform crept slowly through Victorian England.
As much as the earl and countess loved each other, it paled in comparison to how they felt about their children. They adored their daughters and younger son. However, they were realistic. Annabelle, with her stunning beauty, was sure to make a good match. She had had three offers during her first Season, and five during her second. However, the earl had refused them all. Not only was he looking for a peer equal in rank to his own for his lovely daughter, but he was also looking for a member of the House of Lords whom he could influence to support his own proposed reforms. Most of the vapid young men who had offered for Annabelle had no interest in politics. Most of them had never read an entire book once their formal education had finished, let alone learned anything about how their own positions in politics worked.
His own son, Justin, was in school at Cambridge, and had inherited his father’s love of learning, for which George Fairchild, Earl of Winchester, gave daily thanks. Like most young men of eighteen, Justin spent his fair share of time at clubs with his friends when he wasn’t engaged in his studies, but he had a genuine interest in the estate he was to inherit. His early morning ride was as much caused by his love the estate and its people as it was of riding and his stallion, ________.
And then there was Ava. Dark, frail Ava, with her glasses and bookish ways. He and Evelyn had recognized when she was eleven years old that she was destined to be a bluestocking. He had quietly been talking to his accountant about making sure she would have enough of a living to be taken care of for the rest of her days, because he did not expect her to be able to make a match. Plain young women who openly wore spectacles did not make matches easily, no matter how wealthy their fathers. And the earl was loathe to pair her with an older gentry simply in order for her to make a match. Besides, he would never be able to convince a peer his own age to undertake reforms on behalf of the fairer sex.
When it has been time to engage tutors for Justin, the earl had turned the other eye when Ava had quietly fixed herself in the corner of the room to listen to the lessons. Daily she had crept closer and closer, and when Justin struggled with Latin, it was Ava who quietly helped him. When the earl had found her quietly weeping over a book one day when she was ten years old because she was having trouble seeing the print, he arranged for her to have glasses made immediately, despite the fact that it was considered unladylike for young ladies of the peer to wear glasses.

The Earl’s plush carriage carried Ava, Annabelle, and Evelyn down to the makeshift hospital. The hospital was part of a nunnery that stood on cliffs overlooking the water. When the first soldiers had returned wounded from the war with injuries greater than their families and staff could manage, the nuns had opened their doors and concentrated all their care for the young men. It made it easier for the county’s two surgeons to tend to the young men to care for them all under one roof. For the past two summers, Countess Winchester had brought her daughters to volunteer at the nunnery. It wasn’t prudent for young ladies to change bandages or to participate in any of the actual medical care for the young men, but they could offer good cheer. The protests that the earl had put forth over breakfast were the same he put forth every year, and had more to do with the fact that he resented not being able to do more himself, and losing the company of wife and daughters for the day than any real concerns about their behavior.

Lord Crispin _______, the Marquis of _______, was struggling to walk on crutches. His main injury was a head injury, but his legs were weakened from prolonged bed rest. Atrophy, the doctors called it. His legs, once powerful from daily horse riding, were now shriveled and spindly. He cursed himself for being so clumsy with the crutches, but it wasn’t easy to navigate them with the heavy white bandage that covered his eyes and blinded him temporarily.
At least he hoped it was temporary. He more than hoped it, actually. He willed his eyes to heal, every day. They wouldn’t know for many more weeks whether or not his vision loss was permanent, and in the meantime, the bandages would stay. At least his hair was starting to grow back. His black hair, once worn in a swarthy, long cut, the fashion of the day, and sometimes roped off at his neck, was now cut short and barely starting to grow in again. He was glad he couldn’t see what he looked like.
When he was done doing the exercises on crutches that would strengthen his leg muscles (his arms were already compensating greatly), one of the nuns wheeled him to the parlor area. Crispin was now well enough that he was encouraged to sit with the other patients, rather than stay in bed all day. He felt his isolation and blindness acutely, however; he couldn’t play cards with the other young men, or write letters, or play the piano in the parlor. But most of all, he couldn’t read. So, on this day, he was astonished when he was wheeled into the room to hear the strong, clear voice of a woman reading from Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans. The book was largely considered to be contraband in England, hard to obtain because the author was American. But it had been one of his favorites at Eton, circulated by a boy whose father was in business with Americans.
It had also been one of Alex’s favorites. Crispin winced slightly at the thought. Alex. His younger brother had fought against Napoleon’s armies in France until about six months ago, when their family received reports that he was missing. Alex was only twenty-two years old. Crispin still remembered walking into his father’s study. Their butler, ______ had sent a footman on horseback to find Crispin, who had been riding over the moors in the morning. A messenger had come from Alex’s regiment to let the family know that Alex had fought in the battle of Waterloo, and that after a search of the living, wounded, and dead, Alex had not been found. At first, his regiment had suspected that he had run away. Crispin’s fingers curled in anger at the memory. However, a prisoner who had been released by the French had reported meeting someone who matched Alex’s description, who was injured and also being held by the French.
Crispin had crossed the room quickly to support his mother, who had started to pitch forward at the news. He coaxed her to a chair, while his father quickly called for brandy.
His father turned to face the messenger. “What can be done?”
“Nothing, m’lord,” the youth had stammered. “We just… wanted you to know.”
Crispin’s father, ______, Marquis of ________, had slammed his fist on his desk, startling everyone in the room. “Impossible!” he roared. “There must be some kind of ransom we can pay, something they want!”
“M’lord, the captain is doing everything he can to negotiate a trade of prisoners, sir.”
“Who is this captain of yours? What experience has he had in matters of negotiation!?”
Crispin’s father turned beet red, and Crispin quickly motioned to the footman to pour more brandy. Without pausing to think, Crispin said to his mother, “I will find him, Mother.” He rose and crossed the room to his father. “I will leave without delay. I will go to France, and I will bring Alex back.”
“I forbid it,” his father said quietly. “You are the next Marquis. This is why first sons don’t go to war!”
His mother’s voice came quietly from her chair. Her fingers clutched the brandy like it was a beacon of hope. “Please,” she asked her husband. “I can’t bear the thought that he is suffering or being ill-treated or…” she couldn’t finish the thought. “Please, Arthur. Let Crispin try.”
Crispin couldn’t imagine what pain his French mother was feeling at that moment, knowing that her countrymen were possibly responsible for her younger son’s imprisonment.
“Father, you know that I can pass myself as French,” Crispin reminded him. Crispin had learned French at his mother’s knee, and spoke the language as fluently as English. “I can do more than some young captain who has no knowledge of the French and their ways.”
“My father will provide assistance to Crispin as soon as he debarks,” the Marchioness said. “I will write him straightaway.”
The Marquis heaved a great sigh, and his shoulders looked like they might cave in on his chest. “Margot.” He tossed back his brandy in one swallow. “Margot,” he repeated.
“The letter won’t reach France before Crispin does,” he finally said. “Go make my son’s traveling clothes ready!” He barked at the footman. He called for the butler, ______: “Draft a letter to my son’s captain on my behalf and tell him that we are sending Crispin to negotiate on Alex’s behalf. Tell him that if he tries to interfere, I will personally buy his commission and send him to hell!”
“Thank you, Arthur,” Crispin’s mother loosened her grip on the brandy glass, and Crispin went and closed his arms around her. He kissed the top of her head.
“I’ll find him for you, Maman. I promise.”
She wrested herself so she could look him in the eye. “Crispin. Don’t take unnecessary chances. I can’t lose you both.”
“Don’t worry, Maman, I won’t. Je t’aime.”
“Tu es mon coeur,” she whispered back.
***
“Are you all right, my lord?” Crispin heard the soft voice of one of the nuns as she put her hand on his shoulder, and he realized that he had fallen asleep while listening to the sound of the last Mohican. He startled a bit, forgetting a moment where he was.
“Oui, je suis bien, merci.” He wondered briefly how the sister had known he was asleep, what with the heavy bandages covering his head.
“I’m sorry?” She murmured.
Crispin realized he had spoken French without thinking.
“He said he is fine, thank you,” said the voice who had been reading. Crispin turned his head in her direction. “I’m sorry, my lord,” she said when he turned. “I spoke without thinking.”
“No, thank you, that’s fine.”
“It is time for our visitors to go today, my lord,” the nun told him. “I’ll take you back to your room before supper.”
“Yes, of course,” Crispin told her, wondering at the voice of the woman who had interpreted for him, the voice who had been reading Fenimore Cooper. What sort of woman was this? Perhaps she was a new nun, but the other nun hadn’t reprimanded her. And how would the nun know French? He would ask later if he thought of it.

“How did it go today, Ava?” Justin asked her at supper as a footman served mashed potatoes and roast lamb.
“She read to them from The Last of the Mohicans!” Annabelle told him with mock horror.
“I was wondering where my copy got to,” Justin reported, grinning broadly.
“Well, what am I to read to young men?” Ava said petulantly, spearing a piece of lamb with her fork. “A romantic novel?”
“Well, if I were in a hospital, that might be just what I wanted to hear,” Justin told her.
“Justin!” Lady Winchester scolded.
“At least you didn’t read to them from Moliere,” the earl told her.
“Speaking of Moliere,” Ava said, “one of the young men fell asleep…”
“Oh, you were that interesting, were you?” Justin teased her. Ava fixed him with a glare over her spectacles.
“And, if you would let me finish, when one of the nuns woke him, he spoke French. Don’t you find that odd?”
“What did he look like?” Evelyn asked.
“He had short cropped black hair, and his face was covered with bandages. I didn’t really see what he looked like.”
“That is probably Lord Crispin _______,” the earl said. “I know his father. Tragic story.”
“What happened?” Annabelle asked eagerly, always interested in gossip.
“Lord Crispin is the oldest son. He’ll be Marquis ________.”
“Then what was he doing in battle?” Justin asked.
“He wasn’t. Well, that is, he wasn’t supposed to be. The family learned about six months ago that their younger son, Alex, had disappeared. For awhile, they suspected he was AWOL. Nasty business.”
Evelyn gasped, and covered her mouth with her linen napkin. She took a sip of wine, nodding at her husband to continue.
“Well, it turns out the French had him. He was injured, and the captain of his regiment was making a terrible mess of trying to get him back. The family was desperate, so Crispin left straightaway to try to get him back.”
“I can’t believe his mother was happy about that,” Evelyn said quietly, looking across the table at her own son, who, thankfully, had not had to take a commission. That was a danger that fell only to younger sons, and they had only Justin.
“From what I heard of it, she wanted him to go. She is French you know.”
“Oh yes! Marchioness Margot ______. I had forgotten,” Evelyn replied.
“Yes, she thought Crispin’s knowledge of the language and culture might help him get his brother back.”
“So, what happened?” Ava asked, impatient to hear the rest of the story.
“Young Crispin was riding out to visit with Alex’s captain to find out where Alex might be being held. Alex’s troops didn’t know who was coming, and fired upon him. He was injured before he even began.”
A gasp rose from the table. “He was shot?” Annabelle asked, horrified.
“Yes, he was shot in the head. That is why he is bandaged. He was blinded. From what I’ve heard, the surgeons say his vision loss may be temporary, but it will be weeks before they know.”
“What of Alex?” Justin asked, thinking of the young man left in France.
“Nobody knows. They haven’t heard anything more about him since the first reports that the French held him.”
A quiet pall fell across the table, and the family sat and sipped their wine, and ate quietly, all thinking about the ________ family and the tragedy that had befallen the two sons. It was the earl who spoke first.
“What time will you go tomorrow, Evelyn?”
“We leave tomorrow morning at 10:30.”
“Justin, would you like to ride over with me and pay a visit to his father? Maybe we can think of some way to offer assistance in some way.”
“Yes, absolutely, Father. Shall we leave at 10:30 also?”
“We can go at nine o’clock. I can’t imagine that he is sleeping over much these days.”