(Author's note - one of the winners from @HistoricalFiction 's Blast From The Past, Flash Fiction competition. maximum 500 words! Story has 496, not including this note)

Marianne bent her head over the sampler and slowly drew her needle through. In and out. The thread had long slipped out of the needle but she didn't care. The task was meaningless, merely something to keep her hands busy and give her mother the impression she was fully occupied.

Where was James? She had watched under hooded eyes as men she had known all her life, filed past the rectory window. Tom Wilson, Jeb Smith, all men who'd been part of the fighting Tenth Foot. Red coats pale with white dust from the road, some sporting blood-stained bandages and others hobbling as if their boots had worn through to the soles. Back from France and the seemingly endless war with Napoleon. She could hear cries of joy and excitement coming from the women who were out in the street to welcome back their menfolk. She wished she was out there with them, but her mother had forbidden such hoydenish behaviour.

"We will wait here, inside the house, like respectable women! He'll be here soon enough, I'm certain."

Where was James? She'd expected to see him at the very front, leading his men into the village, back to the homes they had left more than a year ago, but Ned Tailor had been at the front of the parade. Was it possible she had missed him? Chosen that precise moment to look down? Surely fate couldn't be so cruel.

Marianne refused to let her mind consider for a moment that the worst might have happened. It was impossible. She knew his mother had received a letter from him only a month ago, the word had soon got round the village. It was cruel, only being able to hear about him through the words of others, never being able to receive a letter herself in his own dear hand, but it couldn't be helped. Until they were officially betrothed, convention forbade them from exchanging letters.

Betrothed. Her heart beat faster. Surely, now she had turned nineteen, her father would consider she was old enough to know her own mind. This time, when James asked for her hand in marriage, her father would have to give his consent. Her mind darted ahead. A June wedding, perhaps, with roses...

The housemaid, Mary, broke into her thoughts by bringing in the tea tray.

As her mother fussed with the teapot, Marianne stared openly out the window.

Where was James? A coldness gripped her heart. Was he wounded? Dead? Lying somewhere in an open field, his sightless eyes staring up at the sky? A cart trundled down the road, pulled by a brown horse. Marianne caught a glimpse of red cloth inside and suddenly, she knew it was James.

She was at the door in a flash, darting out into the road and scrabbling at the side of the cart.

"James!" Unnoticed, tears ran down her cheeks.

Then his eyes opened. His weary smile was the best thing she'd ever seen.