Summary: AU – ER meets the Napoleonic Wars. It has everything you could wish for - Abby in a corset, Luka in a uniform, love, war, apple tarts...
Rating: PG-13 for the foreseeable future, just in case.
Disclaimer: All the ER characters that you can recognize are not mine. The Napoleonic Wars don't belong to me as well.
Acknowledgements: To wizened cynic, SheDevil, kenderbender and NaomiP, who have encouraged me to get off my ass and write already. And for this chappie, a big think you to NaomiP, who pointed out a huge plothole...
Author's note: Welcome to yet another of VNL's never-ending serial stories. This is my first real AU – I've always been interested in the Napoleonic wars period, and one day my brain said to me: "Why don't you put ER characters into the early 19th century and see what will happen?" I decided to listen to it and attempt to write a story. Hopefully, this will be a longer story, but with my posting habits, who knows when I will end it…
A note on historical and other accuracy: To accommodate most ER characters into the plot, some (many) historical liberties had to be taken by yours truly and poetic license was generously applied, so only a basic degree of historical accuracy should be expected – mostly major battles and such. It won't be "War and Peace," that's for sure, and the language I use will be decidedly modern. I attempted to do at least some research, which is somewhat hard at the moment, since I currently am in the midst of my 100 pages of B.A. thesis, am studying Arabic 20 hours a week, and have neither regular access to the internet nor a working floppy drive, so time/history/geography inconsistencies will definitely happen.
One more author's note: Feel free to point out any terrible (and not so terrible) mistakes in the reviews. After a couple of chapters are written and more of the plot is unveiled, any good suggestions for future plots (by e-mail or review, if you are not a member of ff.net) will be welcomed, considered and perhaps used with the credit to the one who suggested the plot – these reviewers will have a chance to guest-star in a chapter. Anyways, have fun reading and let me know what you think.
Chapter One – "Encounter"
The sea wind was strong and fresh, and the young woman on the deck of the ship felt somehow inspired by it, as if it was giving her a new hope. She closed her eyes and thought of the last time she felt that wind on her face. It seemed to have been the day before instead of fifteen years she knew had passed since she last traveled across the ocean. She was a child then, and now she knew and understood much more of the world then the awestruck young girl she had been when she first came to America. Everything had been so easy then – their mother thought she was bringing them to a better place, taking them away from the town she would forever associate with the death of her husband. It had perhaps been a good decision. They had lived well, in fact still were living quite comfortably – the wealth they brought with them had been well managed by their banker. But her mother was not well, and the move to the hot shores of Georgia did not improve her health. She remembered that when she was a child, her mother used to have fits of hysteria, and the move made them occur more often. Countess Magdalena, or Maggie, as she was called by her friends, was the central figure in Savannah's social circles when she was well, but when her illness overtook her she would do scandalous things, and bring embarrassment to her two children. She thought she could escape the house, and with it her mother's illness, by marrying the dashing Richard Lockhart, the man who was considered a very good match by any young woman of high standing in Savannah. The marriage seemed to solve the problem for a while, but she had recently discovered that Lockhart had taken to visiting a house of an unmarried woman of ill repute and divorced him. And now, her dear young brother Eryk seemed to have developed the same illness as her mother and had departed the United States, heading for the turbulent shores of Europe, determined to be a hero.
Her brother had always been such an impressionable child – he took in every idea he came upon, and created his own ideas out of them, which at first had made sense, but with age had become more and more convoluted. The Countess blamed herself for not recognizing his illness in time – she should have known that this kind of behavior indicated that something was wrong. Her mother's illness had blinded her to the illness of her brother, because her mother had always been so volatile as opposed to her brother's quiet madness. She thought he had been doing well at his new home in New York when she got a hastily scribbled, incomprehensible letter from Austria which seemed to have been written by a stranger who was clearly not well, but written by the dearly familiar hand and expressing the ideas she knew her brother had espoused most of his life. After rushing to New York, she found out that her brother had left for Europe in a hurry several months earlier, clearly not himself. In his state of mind, she could not tell which warring side he would be likely to join, and where she could find him, but she knew that she had to find him. Her mother had been crushed by her brother's flight, and had lapsed into a prolonged fit, and after asking a family friend to take care of her and despite her friends' attempt to persuade her that Europe was no place for a young lady due to all the terrible things taking place there, the younger Countess made up her mind to try to find her beloved brother. Upon hastily preparing for a voyage and taking on an old friend as a companion, she arranged for a passage to England on the Violet, the ship she currently found herself on.
Hearing the rustling of a dress behind her, she turned around, smiling when she saw that her companion had finally woken up. The other woman was in many ways an opposite of her – she was taller, more solidly built and her hair was as light as her own was dark. They became friends in Savannah when the Wyszenski family moved there and enjoyed many years of friendship until Susan's marriage to an U.S. Army officer took her to the frontier, where Susan's husband, a brash young man whom she had loved dearly, got himself killed by the Indians after raiding an Indian village with his company. It was already three years since her husband's death, but her companion had shown no sign of wanting to let another man take the place of her husband. Ever since they encountered each other again at a soiree in New York a year before, the two women had been inseparable, the friendship that had been put on hold for five years resuming without a hitch.
"Are you feeling better, Abby?" the older woman asked, joining her friend at the railing and looking out at the sea. Abby sighed and absentmindedly tugged at a loose strand of her hair.
"I feel better, Susan – my stomach has finally settled and I am ready to join you in the dining room again. But I could not sleep last night again. I was worried about him."
"I am sure we will find him, my dear," the blonde woman said, patting the other woman's arm and smiling kindly at her.
"Susan, he could be anywhere. You know Eryk – he has always been a free spirit, and now he has been infused by those dreadful French ideas in his madness. I do not understand what men seek in philosophy – it is but a dreadful waste of thinking-"
"-Perhaps we should have some breakfast," Susan interjected, knowing that the only way to stop her friend's tirades was to mention food. Abby immediately remembered that she was quite hungry, and the women retreated to the small cabin that served as a dining room to the ship's few wealthy passengers and ordered breakfast, which was prepared rapidly and presented to them by the ship's steward, Mr. Ferguson, a charming older gentleman who took it upon himself to know every single bit of news on the ship. After putting down the breakfast tray, the steward paused next to their table, looking somewhat conspiratorial.
"I am glad that you are feeling better, Miss Lockhart," he started, and Abby thanked him, thinking that her health was not the reason he wanted to talk to them. She was immediately proven right when Mr. Ferguson discreetly whispered, "There is a young gentleman who wishes to make your acquaintance," and pointed in the direction of the before mentioned young gentleman with an innocuous wave of his hand. "What should I tell him, my ladies?"
The two women looked at each other, and Abby opened her mouth, trying to say something when Susan's hand, carefully concealed from Mr. Ferguson's view, successfully brandished a hairpin.
"Tell the gentleman we would be honored to meet him," Susan responded, ignoring Abby's scathing look as she rubbed her arm.
Mr. Ferguson bowed slightly with a smile and hurried off to talk to the young man. They talked for a short while, and then the young man rose from his table and walked towards the table that two women occupied. As the young man neared them, the women examined him attentively, silently agreeing that he looked unquestionably intriguing. He approached the table and bowed slightly.
"I hope I do not inconvenience you, ladies-"
"Actually you-"" Abby was stabbed with a hairpin again and closed her mouth.
"We'd be honored to meet you, Mister-"" Susan looked at Abby pointedly and then presented the man with her politest smile. Abby managed a bored smile for the sake of Susan, and tried to look interested. The man smiled and sat down on the chair Mr. Ferguson thoughtfully provided.
"Allow me to introduce myself – my name is John Carter."
"I am Susannah Lewis," Susan said, "and this is my friend, Barbara Lockhart, Countess Wyczenska."
"It is great pleasure to meet you," the young man said pleasantly. "I have seen you earlier, but I have myself been somewhat under the weather, so I had no chance to make your acquaintance until today. Despite Violet's quite tolerable accommodations, the company leaves quite a lot to wish for. You have had a chance to eat dinner with the Johnsons, I believe?"
Abby shuddered slightly. Martha and Ezekiel Johnson were plantation owners from South Carolina whose table and other manners left much to be desired for, and the two women did anything they could to avoid the two.
"We have had the pleasure," Abby replied, now more interested in the stranger. "It is also a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Carter. If I may ask, are you going to England on business or vacationing there? I have heard that it is a beautiful country. I have been there for a short time many years ago, but I remember little about it."
"Oh, madam, please call me Carter. I am actually going to visit my family - as hard as it would be to judge by my speech, I was born in London. My father has a plantation -" Carter grimaced slightly as he said the word, " - in Jonesborough, Tennessee, which belonged to my mother's parents, and I have lived most of my life there, except for the last couple of years, which I have spent in Cambridge, Massachusetts, studying medicine. I am myself much more of an American then an Englishman – I have been to the "old country" several times, but I prefer the wide plains of the United States to the dirty old towns of Britain. I am coming back to see my grandparents, who had expressed a wish to see me in their last letter, since I have not been to London ever since before I began my medical studies. And may I ask where you come from, Countess?"
"My family is from Poland – we left the country fifteen years ago when my father passed away. The Russians have made a dreadful mess of everything and my mother felt that it would be better for us to live in America for a while. And please, call me Abby." Noticing the slight confusion on Carter's face, Abby realized that he did not know the story behind her nickname and hastened to explain. "My mother calls me Basia, and when I met Susan she had the hardest time saying it-" After a chuckle from Susan, Abby explained further, "-well, she was ten and could not pronounce "s" at the time, so she just had began to call me Abby, and now all of my friends call me that."
"I prefer to be called by my last name because it often seems that every second man in our family is named John – it leads to a bit of confusion when the family gathers together."
"I could imagine," Susan said with a laugh. "In my family, all the men seem to be named Zechariah, so we have the same problem during the large family dinners."
"And how about you, Mrs. Lewis, where are you from?"
"I am from Savannah, born and raised there, except for the time I had spent with my late husband at Fort Dearborn, in the Territory of Illinois and two years in New York." Susan did not say anything further and the other two politely switched to another topic.
After the breakfast was finished and all possible conversation topics had been explored, Carter rose from the table to retire to his cabin because he was still feeling somewhat unwell.
"I hope to have the pleasure to dine with you later today, ladies. The journey now seems much less unpleasant than it did this morning, owing much to the present company." Carter bowed slightly and left the dining room, leaving the two women to discuss him over an apple tart provided by the helpful Mr. Ferguson.
"I certainly feel better knowing someone who has connections in London, Susan. Perhaps he could refer us to someone who could arrange our voyage to Europe," Abby said, taking another piece of the pastry from the plate and looking at it dreamily. "And - do you also feel that Mr. Carter is quite – pleasant-looking?"
"You are right about that, dear," Susan replied, also looking at her pastry with more fondness than a simple tart warranted. "Why don't we go back to our cabin and discuss young Mr. Carter some more?"