Page 1 of The Moonstone Hero
Chapter One
Moonstone Landing
Cornwall, England
July 1829
“Get out!”
With no further warning, a tin cup flew past Lady Ella Stockwell’s head as she stepped into the private hospital quarters reserved for wounded sons of England’s privileged elite on what should have been a quiet Monday afternoon. The cup hit the door with a solidthwack, spilling cider mostly on it and the floor. A few drops splattered onto the apron Ella had thought to wear over her gown. “Try that again, Caden Seaton, and I shall ram that cup down your throat.”
She took a moment to pick it up, and then wet a cloth to quickly wipe down the door and sop up the small puddle on the floor. Fortunately, clean cloths, a basin, and a ewer of fresh water were kept in every room. She had only to grab whatever she needed from those items neatly placed on a table beneath one of the large windows. Also on the table was a vase filled with lavender, its refreshingly subtle scent filling the air.
Ella could have left the task of cleaning the spill to one of the hospital workers, but they were already stretched thin caring for the batch of newly arrived wounded soldiers carried off the Royal Navy frigate that had docked in the harbor this morning.
“You really are too much,” she muttered, frowning at the difficult man who merely glared back at her with wild obsidian eyes. Most of these sons and grandsons of peers were not only privileged, but arrogant, and none more so than Caden Seaton, grandson and heir to the powerful Duke of Seaton.
“Do I know you?”
“Yes, you clot.” She did not know the specifics of how he had arrived in his bruised and battered condition in Moonstone Landing’s Fort Arundel Army Hospital earlier this week, but the anger with which he had hurled that cup spoke of significant damage to his soul as well as his body. Yet, by the newspaper accounts lauding his military campaigns, he had come home a hero, ready to be showered with more medals and honors than most generals received over decades of service.
But this man did not look like a hero, not even while his dark hair, masculine face, and broad shoulders were illuminated in the afternoon’s golden sunlight that surrounded them.
In truth, he looked like he wanted to crawl into a dark cave and die.
“Your voice is familiar, but that changes nothing. Get out!” He ignored her by turning his back as she approached his bed. It was the only one currently occupied in the spacious and sunlit room overlooking Moonstone Landing’s harbor and the glistening sea beyond.
“You were an arrogant lout when I first met you, and you haven’t changed one bit. Recognize me yet? I don’t suppose you would. It would require your thinking of someone other than yourself for once.”
She saw him stiffen, and then he emitted a soft chuckle. “I might have known it was you.”
However, he refused to turn toward her. “Get out, Ella,” he said more gently, still refusing to properly acknowledge her. “I don’t want you to see me like this. Please…just go.”
How could she remain irritated with him now?
His voice resonated not only with anger but shame, pain, and utter misery.
What had happened to him?
She drew up a chair beside his bed. “I am not going to leave, so you may as well turn around and face me. I’ve brought a book of poetry to read to you. However, I think we can skip it for today. If I dared open it, you would probably grab it from my hands and hurl it at the door as you did the cup. Or perhaps you would toss the book out the window, and me along with it.”
He said nothing, just continued to stare at the wall.
She sighed and settled into the chair. “Major Fionn Brennan is in charge of the army fort and the hospital attached to it. Have you met him yet? I’m sure he must have come by to greet you. He makes a point to spend a moment with every soldier brought here, even the arrogant, privileged ones like yourself who are given private rooms instead of placed in the common wards. His wife, Lady Chloe, is my Aunt Phoebe’s sister.”
“Fascinating. Just what I needed to hear today—irrelevant details of your family tree. As if I were not bored enough. If you wanted to put me in a coma, you could not have chosen a better topic.”
Ah, Caden always knew how to level the sarcasm with biting condescension.
Too bad his insufferable attitude hadn’t changed.
“Aunt Phoebe’s other sister is Duchess Henley, wife of the Duke of Malvern. She is known as Duchess Hen. Her husband, Cain, is a big bear of a man and probably the largest landowner in the area. He will maul you if you dare speak to him as insolently as you spoke to me just now.”
“Positively delightful,” he grumbled. “Any other scintillating facts you wish to share before I fall irrevocably into that coma?”
“I’ve had two offers of marriage.”
That got his attention.
