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If Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam of the 133rd Infantry Brigade was Napoleon, the Second Battle of El Alamein was his Waterloo. A nasty leg injury had had him in one of the first convoys back to Cairo. He’d been in and out of consciousness, faintly aware of arriving at a hospital.
As he came around from the anaesthetic, he could take stock of the situation. His leg was immobile, he ached more than he ever had in his life, and there was a very pretty nurse sitting by his bed.
She heard him stir, and turned towards him.
“Hello Colonel, how are you feeling?” She asked quietly. Richard grimaced and reached for a glass of water. She passed it to him.
“Not phenomenal, Sister” Richard replied, after he had wet his whistle.
“I should imagine not, with a leg like yours. I’m Sister Elizabeth Bennet, I’ll be looking after you whilst you’re with us” Elizabeth explained.
Alarm bells went off in Richard’s mind, had he heard her right?
Bennet?
Richard had never put much stock into soulmarks before, he’d always figured that Bennet was a very common surname, and that he needn’t worry too much about finding somebody to fit the bill, but as it was he’d never actually met somebody with the name of ‘Bennet’ before, and it had sent a bolt of lightning to Richard’s heart.
“I am on your case, as it were,” Elizabeth explained, “because before I was stationed here I was briefly acquainted with your cousin, Darcy, back in England”
“You’ve met Darcy?” Richard replied, astounded. He’d not imagined he’d find somebody with a personal connection to him as far away from home as Cairo. His cousin William Darcy was a prickly figure at best, to those he didn’t know particularly well, and Richard wanted to make sure that this lovely Sister Bennet hadn’t gotten the worst impression of him.
“He is friends with my sister’s husband, Charles Bingley” Elizabeth said, “I met him at their wedding. He’s a quiet chap, isn’t he? I hardly spoke to him but we were introduced, this was just before the war of course”
Richard smiled as Elizabeth told him all about her encounter with his cousin at her sister’s wedding. He vaguely remembered Darcy telling him of Bingley’s marriage to a very nice young woman, with a loud and brash family. If Elizabeth was anything to go by, Richard didn’t see the issue with the Bennet family. Elizabeth also explained to Richard that she was to keep a particular eye on him, as she had nursed her father back to health after a leg injury, and had helped him regain use of his limb. If she could do it for her father, perhaps she could do it for Richard too.
Whilst she was tending to other patients on the surgical recovery ward, Richard watched Elizabeth. She floated around with grace, but also with purpose. She was never without purpose it seemed. She charged from one end of the ward to the other, with urgency, but with a serene sense of calm following in her wake. As other patients called out for Nurses and pain treatment, Elizabeth managed them all efficiently, one by one, with no apparent strain on her own situation. She was the model of Nursing, Richard decided, and he was mighty glad she was on his side.
Having some vague connection with his family, Elizabeth was aware that Richard was the second son of the Earl of Matlock, and as such would most definitely be expected to come back from the war unharmed, if his rank of Colonel hadn’t said that already. For a member of the aristocracy, Elizabeth thought that Richard seemed remarkably well adjusted, normal, and down to earth, but she wondered if that wasn’t a product of Army life, and service in conflict.
In the couple of weeks under Elizabeth’s care that it took Richard to get to a place where he might attempt to at least move his leg, he was sure he’d started falling in love with her, and not just because her surname was Bennet.
It was soon realised that it was going to take an awful lot of work for Richard to be able to walk again properly, and a lot of time and energy would have to be expended by not just Richard to get him that way. The Matron had seen Richard and Elizabeth together, and reasoned that as they got along well. With Elizabeth’s prior experience with her father, much better than any of the other nurses could boast, she was assigned to Richard’s case personally by the Matron. Elizabeth would work just with Richard, as some new nurses had arrived fresh from England. Elizabeth needed the break from ward duties, and Richard needed full time help to try and walk again.
The first few weeks of their attempt to get Richard walking again were long and painful and tough. Richard would walk a metre, and then need to rest for up to a day again. Elizabeth reassured him that the strength and muscle would build up, slowly but surely. She tried to keep his spirits up the best she could, playing cards with him, lending him books from her collection, and making up tall tales about other patients to amuse one another.
With every step forward Richard took, the more Elizabeth fell in love with him. His strength, his passion, his iron will, his softness, his jokes, the way he laughed at her jokes. Everything he did seemed utterly enchanting to Elizabeth.
When she first saw him come into the hospital, and had heard that his surname was Fitzwilliam, she had been curious about him. When she’d found out who he was, and his connection to her through her sister’s marriage, she was very interested in getting to know him a little bit. She hadn’t anticipated falling head over heels in love with him almost instantly.
After almost six weeks of physiotherapy, Richard was nearly able to cross the ward lengthwise. So he would have a little success, Elizabeth wheeled him to a room ever so slightly smaller, giving him the chance to make it from wall to wall. In her rambunctious applause, she hadn’t noticed the bracelet that covered her soulmark coming loose. When Richard reached her, and reached out for her hand, it fell off. Richard’s eyes were drawn to her wrist, though he knew he should look away, and he was sure his heart skipped several beats when he saw the ‘Fitzwilliam’ there. Elizabeth’s eyes met his, and without a word being said, Richard bared his wrist to her, revealing the matching ‘Bennet’ on his own skin.
Richard could particularly move forward to kiss her very easily, so it was Elizabeth who moved to close the gap. One of her hands rested on his shoulder, the other on his hip, so he stayed upright. His free hand pulled her close by the small of her back. When their lips met, Richard swore there were fireworks going off in his mind, every fibre of his being telling him that this was it, Sister Elizabeth Bennet of Queen Alexandra’s Imperial Military Nursing Service was his soulmate, and he was finally kissing her.
They couldn’t quite ‘court’ as normal couples would, not whilst Elizabeth was still Richard’s nurse, but that didn’t mean they didn’t sneak kisses whenever they could. Kisses became rewards for pushing further and further with Richard’s recovery, and it seemed to do him the world of good. It wasn’t long before he was well enough to be transported back to England, for a safe desk job in London.
The one problem was that Richard couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Elizabeth behind in Cairo. How could he leave his soulmate in a war zone whilst he was invalided back home to safety? He knew there was only one thing for it.
It was about a week before his departure when he decided the moment was right, a sunny afternoon in the Hospital garden. Richard had managed to walk out there from the ward, and Elizabeth had been very impressed. He asked her quietly, and delicately, as they sat on a bench in the sun.
“Elizabeth, will you marry me?” He asked.
Elizabeth smiled fondly at him.
“I’d love to” She replied, leaning over to kiss him gently. He took her hand in his, and held it tight.
A week later, they shipped back to England together, arriving quietly at Southampton. Richard’s father had sent a car for them from Derbyshire, and soon they were well on their way back up to the Fitzwilliam family home.
They married quietly a couple of months later, with Richard’s brother Lord Stornoway as his best man, and his wife Marjorie as Elizabeth’s bridesmaid. Elizabeth wore Marjorie’s pre-war wedding dress, with a few alterations, as she and Richard became husband and wife in Matlock.
And, dear reader, both Colonel and Mrs Fitzwilliam survived the war, with their children Thomas, Juliet, Eloise, and Anthony, and they lived happily ever after.