Her Lady’s Honor Read online

  The war might be over, but the battle for love has just begun.

  When Lady Eleanor “Nell” St. George arrives in Wales after serving as a veterinarian in the Great War, she doesn’t come alone. With her is her former captain’s beloved warhorse, which she promised to return to him—and a series of recurring nightmares that torment both her heart and her soul. She wants only to complete her task, then find refuge with her family, but when Nell meets the captain’s eldest daughter, all that changes.

  Beatrice Hughes is resigned to life as the dutiful daughter. Her mother grieves for the sons she lost to war; the care of the household and remaining siblings falls to Beatrice, and she manages it with a practical efficiency. But when a beautiful stranger shows up with her father’s horse, practicality is the last thing on her mind.

  Despite the differences in their social standing, Beatrice and Nell give in to their unlikely attraction, finding love where they least expect it. But not everything in the captain’s house is as it seems. When Beatrice’s mother disappears under mysterious circumstances, Nell must overcome her preconceptions to help Beatrice, however she’s able. Together they must find out what really happened that stormy night in the village, before everything Beatrice loves is lost—including Nell.

  Also available from Renée Dahlia

  To Charm a Bluestocking

  In Pursuit of a Bluestocking

  The Heart of a Bluestocking

  Merindah Park

  Making Her Mark

  Two Hearts Healing

  Racetrack Royalty

  His Christmas Pearl

  Content Warning

  This book deals extensively with domestic violence, murder, suicide and war trauma, and contains references to war-related deaths and injuries of humans and animals, as well as the historical Cardiff race riots of 1919.

  Her Lady’s Honor

  Renée Dahlia

  For all the people who contributed to WWI who have been erased from the popular history.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Epilogue

  Author Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Excerpt from The Girl Next Door by Chelsea M. Cameron

  Chapter One

  June 1919. Wales.

  Nell hugged her woollen military-style jacket tighter around her shoulders and yearned for her army-issue trench coat, given to a shivering child somewhere in France months ago. The length of the trench coat would better prevent the nasty chill from the blustery wind which blew around Nell’s skirts. She stood on the wharf at Aberystwyth, weary of waiting. At the far end of the beach, in the distance, were the ruins of Aberystwyth Castle. It must have been an imposing structure once, but now it was just a pile of stones on a grassy knoll. Like the castle, she’d survived, but couldn’t manage to hold herself with the same intimidating glory as she’d had before the war began. She was so damned tired of the cold, and her bad knee ached with the sure sign of an incoming storm. Wasn’t this supposed to be the middle of summer? The tiny glint of the sun off the sea spoke of promises, even on this overcast grey day when the sun hid behind a wall of grey cloud and a miserable wind blew around her legs. Promises she couldn’t quite grasp, as if they spoke of a future that was out of her reach.

  The unloading crane swung over the side of the steamship, Tommy dangling precariously in the air. The padded sling around the horse’s girth and the other ropes to steady his progress didn’t give Nell any optimism he would make it safely to dry land. Not with this wind buffeting him so the ropes groaned as the wharfies lowered him on the pulleys. She and Tommy had made it so far together, all the way from the Somme’s makeshift hospital at Abbeville where they’d bid goodbye to Tommy’s owner, and her commanding officer at the Army Veterinary Corps, Captain Llewellyn Hughes.

  ‘Bring my horse home safely.’

  The ropes creaked as the wind pushed against Tommy’s bulk, and Nell winced, her hands twisted together. She hoped the ropes would hold for this last difficult part of their journey. Slowly, Tommy was successfully lowered down onto the wharf and the workers proceeded to undo all the ropes holding the sling in place. She walked over to the horse, held his head collar, and gave him a steadying rub between the ears.

  ‘We made it. Almost.’ She spoke to Tommy in a low whisper, breathing in the scent of horse and leather, letting the rest of the world melt away for a too-brief moment. ‘Oh, Tommy...’ She crooned at the horse and he flicked one ear to listen to her. ‘Soon we will have to say goodbye. We’ve come so far together, you and I, and you’ve been a great companion on this journey.’ Together, they’d trekked nearly a hundred and fifty miles from the Somme to the port at Le Havre, then by boat to Aberystwyth—months of partnership, with Tommy carrying her faithfully. Once she handed him over, she’d truly be alone, left to make the final leg of her journey home by herself.

  ‘Excuse me, miss, you can’t stand here.’

  ‘This is my horse.’ Not technically, but it felt that way after so much time together. Nell wasn’t going to let someone else lead him away. She wouldn’t risk anything happening to Tommy. They were almost at Captain Hughes’s house, and so close to achieving this one small goal. It had seemed an impossible promise—to deliver one plain bay gelding to Wales—but it was an impossibility filled with hope. She’d almost fulfilled her promise.

  ‘You need to collect your cargo from over there, miss.’

  ‘I’ll take the horse from here.’ Nell didn’t bother with using her rank. She wasn’t going to be stopped by a polite wharf-man in his neat uniform, with his cap jammed low over his dark features, hiding against the wind. She asked Tommy to step forward, carefully, over the sling and ropes now lying around his feet. The gelding had seen everything in his ten years, from farm hack of unknown parentage to one of the lucky few to survive the horrors of war and come home. Most other horses had been sold locally. Transporting a horse cost a lot of money, and the army couldn’t pay. Besides, people were starving, and the ready supply of horse-meat seemed like a simple solution to those who sat behind desks far from the front line. Nell suppressed a shiver. Those paper pushers had no idea the toll their decisions had on the surviving soldiers being asked to watch their horses being led away to an unsavoury fate. It had been straightforward—not easy, but necessary—to shoot the injured horses, to humanely end their pain, but near on impossible to let the healthy ones go. After all the slaughter on the front, the horses who survived deserved much more than that fate. Tommy was fortunate enough to be a captain’s horse, with a captain who could afford the exorbitant shipment home. Plain old Tommy had become a symbol of hope for her amongst all the realities of war.

  ‘Come on, lad, let’s go find your forever home.’ She patted
the gelding on the neck and started walking away from the busy wharf. The horse didn’t blink at all the bustling noise of the wharf and the boat being unloaded around them. He walked along in a quiet rhythm with his head low and relaxed, hardly surprising given the sheer volume of shelling he’d listened to over the last five years. Half his life, and damn if it didn’t feel like half of her life too. A loud thud and a shout rang out from behind her. Nell crouched down automatically, peering around wildly. A pallet had slipped off the crane and landed on the wharf behind her.

  ‘Miss.’ A large hand gently touched her shoulder and she shook it off. ‘No one is hurt.’

  She glanced around. The same wharfie stared at her with care in his deep brown eyes. He held out a hand for her, which she ignored. She slowly rose to her feet, patting Tommy’s neck. The horse simply waited for her to recover from her jolt. Would she ever be free from this reaction to sudden noises?

  ‘I’m fine.’ She tried to force her heart rate to steady, but it thumped erratically out of step with her willpower.

  ‘Don’t mind me, miss, but was it the noise?’

  Nell glared at the wharfie, then forced herself to soften her expression. ‘The noise is nothing compared to the front.’ She cursed her acerbic tongue. It was no one’s business that she’d spent the entire war behind the front lines working.

  ‘I understand.’

  Nell frowned. ‘You do?’

  ‘Corporal Lamin Jobe, previously of the Royal West African Frontier Force, Gambia Regiment, currently one of the lucky retired soldiers to have employment.’ His tone was level, but the downward twist of his mouth spoke volumes, and Nell wondered how much the newssheets had left out, how much she didn’t—couldn’t—know.

  She stuck out her hand for him to shake. ‘Pleased to meet you. I’m sorry for my appalling lack of manners. I was with the Army Veterinary Corps, mostly in Abbeville, France.’

  ‘At the front?’ He shook her hand—soldier to soldier—and she was grateful he appeared to forgive her unforgivable rudeness.

  ‘About thirty miles away.’

  ‘Shell shock is no surprise then.’ His understanding of her reaction to the sudden noise slowed her pulse. The kindness in his eyes painted him as someone who’d been there and knew the impact, and she wished she could begin again. With more respect from her side.

  ‘You have it too?’

  He nodded once, his eyes shuttered. ‘It gets better with time. I wish I could say it went away, but I still baulk occasionally.’

  ‘Thank you. They call it the Great War.’ Nell shook her head, her voice cracking.

  He paused. ‘I suppose they do.’

  ‘You saw action?’ Nell shouldn’t be this curious, not after such a prickly introduction.

  ‘First in Africa, then we were transferred to help defend the Suez Canal. I ended up in the navy.’

  ‘Get off the ground and back to work.’ A rude command interrupted Corporal Jobe. Having spent a whole war doing as she was told meant Nell automatically stayed quiet rather than tell the man in authority that they were obviously already standing.

  Corporal Jobe nodded once in the direction of the authoritative voice and turned to walk away. ‘Yes, sir.’

  Nell reached out and touched him briefly on the arm. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Quickly,’ the supervisor said sharply. Tommy shifted sideways away from the supervisor. Horses were such good judges of character.

  ‘Just helping a fellow soldier, sir.’ Corporal Jobe was quiet, yet boldly confident under the glare of the supervisor.

  The man looked them both up and down with a sneer. ‘Desperate times in the war. They’d take anyone for cannon fodder by the end of it. Get to work before I discuss this with your boss.’ With one more dismissive glare, he walked off, leaving Nell’s fists impotently clutched around Tommy’s lead rope.

  Corporal Jobe lowered his voice. ‘I have to go. He’s the police chief and runs the town.’

  ‘Yes, we shouldn’t give him any more reason to find fault.’

  Corporal Jobe blew out a breath. ‘That’s it. I need to be better, neater, and more efficient than anyone else just to be treated the same.’

  ‘I understand, I think. I was the only woman in the Veterinary Corps,’ said Nell. She knew what it was like to have her every movement questioned. But it wasn’t quite the same as being a black wharfie. She had the advantage of race, and given his job, class also. In Abbeville, she hadn’t thought of it like that; she hadn’t had time to think of much of anything. But here on the wharf, the difference was stark.

  ‘Whereas Chief Superintendent Smithson didn’t serve at all.’ Corporal Jobe glanced over at the man whose gaze filled Nell with unease. Nell would’ve spent more time talking to the Corporal, but she heeded the warning in his voice. Anyone who thought of people as cannon fodder was someone to steer clear of.

  ‘Thank you for your service, Corporal.’

  He acknowledged her with a sharp nod, then paced away to work, leaving Nell alone with Tommy. Before the war, she would have thought chatting to an African soldier on a wharf in Wales couldn’t have happened. Just as the odds of finding a woman who desired her seemed impossible. She’d found solace with a few of the nurses stationed near Abbeville, but that was temporary. Created by circumstance. The world was changing, and with it, Nell could hope for a future where people of all genders, colours, ethnicities, and desires were treated equally. They sure all died the same way in war.

  * * *

  Patient Tommy waited by her side. She asked the horse to walk, deliberately away from the Chief Superintendent. Spying a patch of grass, she led him towards the end of the wharf, away from all the unloading activity. Tommy’s gait quickened as he saw the grass, and Nell let him guide her towards the snippet of food. Fresh grass, even a straggly bit at the edge of the tarmac, was a vast improvement on the dusty hay available on the ship. Nell stared out at the sea as Tommy ate his fill. Hopefully she hadn’t made Corporal Jobe’s working life more difficult by needing his assistance.

  ‘Come on, lad. You’ve eaten that down to bare dirt. I’m sure Captain Hughes will have plenty more.’ Soon, she’d be able to board a train and make her way home to Newmarket. To the horse farm where she’d grown up. To her parents and brother whose letters filled half of her satchel. Home. Where everything smelled like fresh grass, and new promises, and where young racehorses who’d never know the terrors of war galloped free over large paddocks, kicking their heels up for fun. Home, where a thirty-year-old spinster could take stock of her life and try to make sense of the world now the war was over.

  * * *

  A long hour later, Nell finally had all her baggage. The wind cut stronger, whipping the waves into frothy white horses. She really needed to get moving if she was going to deliver Tommy before they both got soaked by the incoming rain.

  ‘There’s a storm coming.’ A one-armed policeman spoke as she swung onto Tommy’s back. His empty sleeve was neatly pinned up—a common sight where almost every man of a certain age had a visible injury, and those who didn’t, like Corporal Jobe and herself, most likely carried invisible injuries.

  Nell nodded. ‘Yes, it feels that way. Excuse me, but is there a reason for the presence of two policemen at the wharf today?’ It was only a small port, hardly warranting the effort.

  The officer kept a neutral expression. ‘Chief Superintendent Smithson always attends the unloading of ships. He believes it’s the best way to keep undesirable items out of Aberystwyth, and care for the good Christian people of our town.’ Nell managed not to snort. The war had stripped away her naivety and destroyed her previous faith in God. War had taught her that the God of her parish church in Newmarket couldn’t possibly exist; no benevolent being would allow such senseless suffering, but conversely, she’d seen countless dying men from all over the world pray to any and every deity to ease their pain. The war ha
d ended months ago, but the after-effects still lingered.

  ‘Could you point me in the direction of the residence of Captain Llewellyn Hughes?’

  ‘You seem like a nice lady. Why do you want to know where Captain Hughes lives?’

  ‘I have to deliver his horse.’

  ‘A word of warning, miss. Captain Hughes had a temper before he left for the war, and the front didn’t improve it.’ The officer’s warning barely registered with Nell.

  ‘Don’t worry about me. Once I’ve delivered the horse, I’ll be on my way home.’

  ‘Just be careful.’ The officer gave her a curious stare, running his gaze over her military jacket and the way she rode astride. She’d made the split skirt herself. Much more practical for fieldwork. Nell felt a fleeting homesickness for the front—back there she’d been treated just like all the other veterinarians. Being seen as something other was a little bit of a shock after so many years.

  ‘I served with Captain Hughes. I don’t need your kindly advice.’

  ‘If you must go—’

  ‘I must. This is his horse.’

  The officer shook his head, as if to renounce any responsibility over her choice. ‘Just follow the train tracks up the valley, miss. It’s nearly five miles. He’s in the stone double storey farmhouse called Bwthyn, just this side of the Capel Bangor Station.’ His expression clearly showed he thought she shouldn’t be going to Captain Hughes’s house alone. She didn’t have time to tell him of all the times she’d been unchaperoned during the war. There was no time for polite society rules when death ruled. Nell nudged Tommy with her legs. By the look of the sky, with the clouds gone from vague grey to angry lumps of black, they were both going to get wet as they walked inland for five miles.

  ‘Come on, Tommy, let’s get you home.’ Why did it feel like the adventure was only just beginning when it should finally be ending?