Written in My Heart Read online

  “Been sick of it for three years,” agreed Morton, taking the bottle in turn.

  Ethan turned back to his ruined journal and Jane’s letters. He peeled off the top one, grimacing at the slick sheen of mud coating the back side of it. His term of muster was almost up, thank the good Lord above. He was sick of battles, sick of gravedigging, sick of forced marches and rations and bivouacs in muddy fields. He was sick of dreaming of home, whose colors and scents and flavors he only remembered thanks to Jane’s letters. He would have run mad without that slender link to home, and now….

  Once he’d been keen to flee the mundane little village of Caxby-on-Avon. It was a fine town, but life there had seemed so … routine. The thought of never venturing beyond its borders, of living there his whole life alongside the same people he’d known since he was born, and of practicing law with his father, had filled him with impatience and despair. He’d thought he would go mad if he didn’t see a little of the world beyond Warwickshire. Well, he’d got his wish; he’d seen plenty beyond Warwickshire, and now he couldn’t wait to get home to it.

  He was going back, and damn the officer—up to and including General Wellington—who tried to stop him.

  Chapter Three

  It was a week before casualty reports appeared in Caxby. The sheer numbers were horrifying—at least three thousand of His Majesty’s troops dead, with many more wounded or missing. No rank was spared, and Jane wondered if the many reports of bravery and valor by the slain men provided any comfort to the widows left behind. She scanned the lists with her own heart in her throat, praying not to see a single familiar name.

  And she didn’t. Ethan Campbell wasn’t on any list.

  “There are so many,” murmured Tamsin, peering over Jane's shoulder as Jane read the lists a second time to be sure.

  “Too many.” Not even her relief at not seeing his name could blot out the horror. It must have been a slaughter, for so many to have fallen. Suddenly sick, she handed the paper to Tamsin and turned away. This list was only men killed, and it was so long. The list of wounded would probably be even longer.

  “Jane,” said Tamsin, hurrying after her as she strode up the street toward the dressmaker’s shop, “it’s a very good sign his name isn’t on the lists.”

  “I know.” She kept her eyes straight ahead.

  “You mustn’t let yourself run mad with worry.”

  “Of course not!” She forced a smile for her friend as they let themselves into Mrs. Lynch’s and climbed the stairs. “I won’t. I can’t. I can only keep praying every night that he’s unharmed, or at least not seriously harmed.”

  Their employer looked up at their entrance. She knew they’d gone to read the casualty reports. “Any word?” Her face softened immediately at Jane’s quick shake of her head. “Thank heavens!”

  “Any word on what?” Millie wanted to know. Tamsin whisked across the room and whispered something to her. Millie’s eyes grew wide, but she didn’t say anything else.

  For a while work went on as usual in the shop. Mrs. Bellows came for her fitting, and Jane took down the nearly finished riding habit, pinning and adjusting until her customer smiled broadly. “Such a fine hand you’ve got, Miss Barton! Finding such a good seamstress here in Caxby is a stroke of pure good fortune, I always tell Mr. Bellows. I’d have to go to London to get anything this fine, if not for you.”

  Jane smiled, even though her knees ached from crawling around the fitting stool to make all the adjustments to the hem. “I’m flattered, ma’am.”

  “You should be, my girl. Mrs. Lynch knows she’s got a prize in you, I hope.”

  “Indeed,” said the modiste warmly. She’d come in to oversee the last of the fitting. “Miss Barton is my right hand.”

  When Mrs. Bellows had left, Mrs. Lynch helped carry everything back up to the workroom. “You may leave an hour early today, Jane,” she said kindly. “You’ve been working such late nights. This habit is almost done, you deserve a free evening.”

  “Did my stitching hold?” asked Millie eagerly.

  Jane smiled. “Every thread. Well done, Millie.” She turned to her employer. “Perhaps I’ll leave just a bit early. Thank you, ma’am.”

  Mrs. Lynch smiled. “Take that dog for a long walk. It will do you both good.”

  Everyone settled down to work. For a while it was quiet in the workroom, aside from Millie’s steps running back and forth to the cabinets for thread or ribbons or anything else needed. Jane bent over her work, taking only the quickest glances out the window when she had to rethread her needle. There was no chance Ethan would come strolling down the street so soon, and Jane knew it, but somehow her eyes went to the window anyway. She forced herself to concentrate on her stitching and tried to keep it from her mind.

  Eventually Millie, as usual, had to say something and thwart her efforts. “I’m very glad Mr. Campbell’s not on the lists, Jane.”

  “Thank you, Millie.”

  “I didn’t even know he was your sweetheart,” the girl went on. “Mum was surprised to hear it, too. Why, she—”

  “Millie,” cried Tamsin as Jane blanched. “Mind your tongue!”

  “Why?” Millie looked alarmed. “What did I say?”

  Jane cleared her throat. “He’s not my sweetheart.”

  “No?” Millie cocked one brow. “You moved your chair to sit by the window to watch for him.”

  Jane gave her a warning look. “I can sit wherever I want.”

  “Of course you can,” put in Tamsin. “Millie, fetch my scissors. This pelisse isn’t going to make itself.”

  “What did I do?” the younger girl exclaimed. “Isn’t it obvious she’s sweet on him? You even told me—”

  “It’s not your place to talk about it!”

  “But you talk about it!” howled Millie as Tamsin advanced on her, a furious gleam in her eye. “Why am I the only one who can’t know anything?”

  “Stop it,” said Jane in a low voice that still halted Tamsin in her tracks. “It’s—it’s not any mysterious secret, Millie. I just….” She shook her head and sighed. “We don’t have an understanding. He wasn’t courting me.”

  “Why not?”

  She felt her face warm. Even Tamsin was listening with barely concealed curiosity. But Tamsin was older than Millie, nearly seventeen, with a sweetheart of her own; she had never asked, but divined Jane’s feelings on her own.

  Or so she supposed. Jane certainly hadn’t told her; she’d never breathed a word to anyone about him. “We were children together,” she explained. “My father died when I was a small girl, and his father sent him around to help my mother after that. His mother had died about the same time, so my mother always sent him home with something she’d baked. Ethan was like an older brother, looking out for me.” She smiled wryly. “Tormenting me as well at times.”

  Millie frowned. “So you’re waiting for your brother to come home?”

  Jane’s smile faded. No, her thoughts had not been sisterly for some time now. Ethan had always been there, strapping and strong. She remembered holding his hand and walking to church on Sundays. She remembered him beating up a boy who teased her. She also remembered the day she first realized he was a man, how the sun had lit his fair hair to golden brilliance and highlighted how broad his shoulders had become. He’d been just twenty years old then, and she only fifteen, but she remembered how her heart had nearly burst at the realization that she loved him.

  But Ethan never knew, never guessed, never gave any indication he might return that feeling. He’d still given her his arm to church and fended off anyone who bothered her, but he’d never looked at her with particular interest or awareness, let alone desire. At times she’d been on the verge of telling him; perhaps he’d never looked at her that way only because it hadn’t occurred to him, or because he thought she wanted to remain a sister to him. She had entertained more than one long daydream about him taking her hand, pulling her into his arms, and kissing her passionately on the lips….

/>   As delicious as that daydream was, though, she knew a far more likely result would be shock and even alarm if she threw herself at him. She could tell herself that of course he wouldn’t notice her that way when she was fifteen … sixteen … seventeen … eighteen…. But at some point a girl had to face the reality that if a man hadn’t noticed her by then, he probably never would. That moment had come for Jane when Ethan went off to war three years ago. He’d told her good-bye and asked her to write to him, and then he’d done the same thing to Mary Windham and Lucy Mannerly and Josephine Evans. Jane had been just one of the many girls waving good-bye with tears in her eyes at his departure, and if Ethan had preferred any of them over the other, he gave no sign of it.

  Her only solace was that she had kept her promise better than the other girls had. Josie Evans was now married to Squire Tatum’s son. Lucy Mannerly’s aunt had taken her to London for a Season and raised her expectations; a country solicitor was no longer good enough for Lucy. Mary Windham claimed she’d written to Ethan, but Jane doubted she’d written every week without fail, as she had done for three years now. Even if her letters were as dull as dishwater, at least she had kept her word.

  Whether that would matter to Ethan was a complete mystery.

  “He’s not my brother,” she finally answered Millie’s question. “But he’s very dear, just the same. Almost like family.” But not quite.

  Tamsin gave her a long look, but said nothing. Millie’s face cleared. “Oh, I see. A very good friend.” She beamed at Jane. “And you’re such a good friend to him, to write so loyally and to care for his dog and wait for him. He must be a wonderful man.”

  “Yes,” she murmured.

  He was the very best man she knew, the sort of man every girl dreamt of. She longed for him to see her as a woman, as someone to love, but even more she longed for him to be unharmed. And as long as he returned safe and whole, she wouldn’t ask for anything else of fate.

  Chapter Four

  Ethan leaned over the rail and took a deep breath, searching for the first sight of coast to break through the mist that shrouded the Channel. Thankfully, his regiment was being sent back to England rather than in pursuit of Bonaparte. It was probably due to the fact that the regiment had suffered tremendous casualties, but he didn’t want to think about that now. It was simply too painful to think about his dead mates. Selfishly, he only wanted to go home. “Yes.”

  “Is that all you can say of her?” Morton laughed. “No wonder she’s not your wife!”

  “I always imagined her as a fetching blonde,” said Bingley in a wistful voice. “Pretty and neat, sitting at her desk writing about the miller making eyes at the girl in the baker’s shop or the dog ruining the clean floor.”

  “No,” said Ethan. “Her hair’s dark.”

  “Dark like tea? Dark like treacle?” prodded Morton. “Come, man, we want details.”

  “I can’t wait to see proper English lasses again,” put in Bingley. “Blond, brunette, red-haired, even gray-haired. My mum will be the loveliest sight I’ve ever set eyes on, I think.”

  “Proof you haven’t got a wife, either.” Morton laughed. “You’d find it hard to think of aught else if you did.”

  “Dark like mahogany,” Ethan said, leaning to the left. Was that a spit of land, nudging up out of the sea? He wanted it to be, so very desperately. “With dark eyes.”

  “Will she be waiting for you as eagerly as you’re straining to be back at her side?”

  “Jane?” He was startled into a laugh. “Who said I was straining to be back at her side? That is—she’s not my Jane, so I can’t possibly be straining to get back to her.”

  “If she’s not your girl, why did she write to you so devotedly?”

  He glared at Morton, who had attached himself to them since Waterloo. The man’s mouth was never closed, and he was very fond of asking pointed and intrusive questions. “That’s the way she is. She promised to write to me, and she did.”

  “Every week? For three years?” Morton shook his head. “The girl’s in love with you, fool.”

  Ethan was taken aback. “I doubt it. We were children together.”

  “It’s very possible,” put in Bingley. “Although if you don’t want her, I’d like to meet her.”

  An instinctive refusal rose in his throat. Ethan cleared his throat to keep from saying it. “Whatever for?”

  Bingley shrugged, leaning against the ship’s rail. “She’s got pretty handwriting. I feel like I would know her voice, just from hearing you read her letters. And any girl who’d write that often must be a very loyal one. I daresay my girl hasn’t waited for me.”

  “You don’t know that….”

  “I do, actually.” Bingley gave a crooked smile. “My sister wrote that Sarah started walking out with James Hill.” He raised his shoulder again. “Not that she ever wrote me half as many letters as Jane wrote to you. I didn’t expect her to wait.” He turned toward the sea, squinting as the stiff wind blew his long hair into his eyes. “It’s better that way, most likely. None of us are the same men who left, are we?”

  “I am.” Morton thumped his chest. “My Willa won’t notice a thing different.”

  Bingley cut him a glance that was surprisingly wistful. “Lucky chap.”

  A spray of saltwater hit them all, and Ethan turned away, glad for anything that diverted the conversation. Jane, in love with him? Unlikely. He’d known her almost as long as he could remember, ever since his father had sat him down and explained that Jane’s papa, like Ethan’s mother, had gone to be with God. He’d impressed upon Ethan that now it would be up to them to look after the Widow Barton and her five-year-old daughter, Jane. From that moment on, it had been his duty to walk her to church, make sure no rowdy boys bothered her, and to make any repairs around the Bartons’ small cottage. He could still remember her big brown eyes shining up at him when he held her hand and walked her to church, adoring and devoted.

  He gave his head a small shake. Adoring, because she’d been a child. She was like a sister to him. And if her eyes still shone when she looked at him, it was out of sisterly affection.

  Of course she’d grown a great deal since he used to mend her broken kite or tell off the boys who teased her. Now that he thought about it, he’d had to tell off a good number of boys. Jane had grown up slim and pretty, and just as neat as ever. Despite their tight circumstances, Widow Barton had always kept her daughter in clean, well-mended frocks. When Jane was grown, she’d apprenticed to the town dressmaker and begun making her own clothes, sturdy and well-made but also fashionable and flattering. Ethan didn’t think he’d ever seen her look less than lovely; she had a way with needle and thread. In fact, he could remember exactly how she’d looked when he said good-bye before joining the regiment. There had been quite a crowd to see him and the few other men from Caxby off, but for some reason he could remember everything about her while the rest of the crowd was a blur.

  Her dark curls had shone in the sunlight, her straw bonnet hanging down her back. She’d worn a green dress, with a spray of pink lilac pinned to her dark blue spencer. Her voice had caught when she promised to write to him, as he kissed her good-bye, and she’d kept her word. Now that he thought about it, no one else in his regiment had got as many letters as he had, just from her. Some letters had taken a while to reach him, and there were a few times when it was clear, from references she made to previous letters, that one had gone missing entirely in the army’s postal system, but if Ethan had to wager, he’d bet Jane had written a letter every single week of the last three years.

  She’s in love with you, fool….

  Could she be? He was astonished by how quickly he liked the idea.

  And for himself, why, of course he loved Jane. Like a sister … and maybe then some. Ethan was aware of other girls in Caxby; he remembered kissing some of them good-bye, too, taking advantage of everyone’s fervor and well wishes. But he’d never walked any of them home because he’d always walked Jane home. The d
ressmaker’s shop was near his father’s law office, and it had seemed the most natural thing in the world to call for her there at the end of each day.

  He turned back to the rail and stared at the sea. Yes, he loved Jane, but was he in love with her? Was it even possible, three years after he’d last set eyes on her? She might have a beau, even a fiancé by now—not that she’d ever written of one, but she was pretty and kindhearted and who wouldn’t want to marry her? His heart seemed to take a sudden drop at the thought. He couldn’t wait to see home again, but the thought of Jane on someone else’s arm was shocking and unpleasant. Bitter, even.

  Ethan sucked in a deep breath of cold, briny air. In a few interminable weeks, he’d be home. He’d see her again. That was the most important thing, getting home. He could sort out any feelings he might have once he was there, where he could see her and talk to her and discern her own feelings for him. For a moment he tried to imagine how she would greet him. She wouldn’t run to him, because Jane was reserved. But her brown eyes would shine, just the way he remembered, and she would smile. Jane had a very pretty smile; just the thought of seeing it again made his own lips curve. And as she gazed at him with her glowing eyes and beaming smile, she would say….

  Another spray of water hit him in the face. Ethan barely noticed. He didn’t know what she would say. But he did realize that his heart had taken a leap as he pictured her face, and the thought had struck him that he wanted to see Jane again more than he wanted to see his father, or his dog, Puck, or anyone else in all of Caxby. All those people he’d known since he was a boy seemed like strangers now, the cast of a life he’d left behind. Because of her many letters, he felt as though he’d never really left Jane behind, though. Every week or so, she’d visited him, and her voice and face were perfectly clear in his memory.