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back. He stood perfectly well on his own, and she’d kept it there for far longer than was appropriate. She’d rather liked it there, though. The thought made her glance down at her muddied hem in mortification as her cheeks heated yet again.
    “I think I should like to accompany the sergeant to the hospital to see what I can do to help, if you don’t mind, Captain.”
    Stirling tilted his head in acknowledgment. “Verra well.”
    They were herded into a carriage that had been converted into a transport for injured men. Two men lay on stretchers, both moaning in pain. Duncan settled onto the single bench with Captain Stirling beside him, but Grace lowered herself into the small space between the two poor men, helpless to do anything to ease their pain. Instead she held their bloodied and muddy hands and spoke to them in a soothing voice as they bounced along, each rut in the road causing both men to wince and cry out in misery.
    Behind her, Duncan was silent. She glanced over her shoulder at him once, to see him watching her, his blue-green eyes brilliant in the dim light.
    They’d been so familiar with each other. In the smug, regimented environment of London, her behavior would be considered entirely unseemly. But this was the aftermath of a terrible battle. Things were different here.
Grace
was different here.
    There was no harm in doing whatever she could to help these men. No harm at all.

Chapter 2
    Grace was utterly beautiful, her bonny locks of golden hair coming loose and curling below the rim of her straw bonnet. Her back was straight beneath a long row of pearl buttons that encased a lithe figure in expensive ivory muslin, now covered in patches of mud. It was as if she didn’t care that she’d ruined a dress that likely cost more than Duncan would make in the next few years as a sergeant in the 92nd.
    She was a fine lady, but she was dirty and on her knees, holding two rough men’s hands, one of them covered in new, wet, shiny-red blood where he’d been clutching his shoulder, which had been sliced open, likely by a bayonet.
    The vision of Grace, this lady, was incongruous while at the same time completely natural. As if she were in her element in this ugly place, a powerful, bright force in the midst of men weakened and darkened by a bloody battle.
    She released one of the men’s hands and gently smoothed a lock of greasy hair back from his sweaty forehead.
    She had soothed Duncan earlier, and now she soothed these soldiers. Something unfamiliar surged within Duncan at the sight. He’d met ladies of her status before, and they had always been aloof, snobbish, and superficial. Not Grace. She was…
real
. A real woman, who smiled and blushed and showed compassion and strength. A woman who’d kneel down in the dirt and allow a stranger’s blood to cover her hand.
    But he had been near her…and she had touched him. Earlier, she’d had her arm wrapped around him, a small but firm support as he’d limped along, clenching his teeth against yet another sprained ankle. He’d broken the bloody thing once when playing ball as a lad, and sprained it countless times since then. The men in his regiment called him Unbreakable Mackenzie, uninjurable except for his “Achilles Ankle.”
    He glanced down ruefully at his arm. His first real injury since he’d enlisted in the army. “I suppose I’m no’ Unbreakable Mackenzie now,” he told the captain.
    Stirling, who’d been lost in his own thoughts, turned to him, seeming to struggle to focus on him. “You’re still in one piece, as I see it,” he said finally. Almost immediately, he turned away, his gaze growing unfocused again, and Duncan left him to his own thoughts.
    Distractedly, Duncan cataloged his wounds. There was his ankle—not a bad sprain, and it should be healed in the next few days. He had a beast of a headache, and his chest hurt when he breathed. But he was certain his arm was the worst of his injuries, by far. He wondered how bad it was.