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  She was, it seemed, beginning to realize what had become of him.

  He pulled his gaze away. “To the book room?” Stanley asked Philip, trying to sound unaffected and unconcerned.

  Philip grinned, holding a fist in the air as if leading an advance. “Charge!”

  Stanley flinched. That word echoed in his mind in myriad different voices, many of which had been forever silenced by war. The Jonquil brothers had shouted that so many times as children as they’d played on the banks of the River Trent, but the dreamlike quality of those games had long been shattered by the nightmare of real warfare. Stanley closed his eyes against the images of young boys lying still and lifeless. His shoulders slumped under the weight of everything he tried to forget. Always a soldier, he reminded himself and instantly corrected his posture.

  Stanley walked stiffly in Philip’s wake. The clunk of his right boot against the floor filled the silence around him. He refused to look at Marjie as he passed. He could not endure the sight of what certainly must be her growing revulsion, not when he was exhausted to the point of being ready to drop. He would face that particular mountain later. He told himself that a lot. Whatever happened, he would face it later. Then he simply put off later indefinitely.

  Philip closed the door to the book room once they’d entered. He pulled off his shockingly purple jacket and flung it on the back of a leather armchair, then motioned for Stanley to sit in the chair opposite.

  Sitting was far simpler than rising. Positioning himself over the seat, he allowed himself to drop back, essentially falling into the chair. Philip sat more gracefully. Indeed, he did most things with a degree of elegance that bordered on absurd. It was one of the most enjoyable things about Stanley’s eldest brother. He could lighten the atmosphere in any setting.

  “You are injured,” Philip said, that penetrating gaze turned on him once more.

  “I was,” Stanley replied, sitting with his back so straight it didn’t even touch the chair.

  “Was is past tense,” Philip said. “You are presently not moving well.”

  Stanley’s right leg seemed to twitch, as if reminding him of his near immobility. “I am moving better than I once was.”

  Philip leaned his head against the outstretched fingers of his right hand, his right elbow resting on the arm of his chair. He studied Stanley’s face. The scrutiny was uncomfortable, but Stanley knew the worst of his physical alterations weren’t visible.

  “How long ago were you injured?” Philip asked.

  “Waterloo.” Stanley swallowed against the word. The name alone brought back unwanted smells, sounds, and sights, all of which would have haunted even the most callous of men.

  “That was four months ago.” Philip’s gaze focused further. “Obviously you are still not well. Have you seen a doctor? Has everything possible been done?”

  “Trust me,” Stanley said. He barely managed to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “Everything has been done.”

  The silence that followed was both heavy and awkward. Stanley hadn’t intended to be cryptic, but he did not at all wish to discuss his injuries nor the treatments they had necessitated. He wanted nothing more than the quiet of his room and to be left alone.

  Philip sighed, a sound of exasperation rather than weariness. He opened the letter Wellington’s second-in-command had ordered be given unopened to the Earl of Lampton. Stanley had no idea what Lord Hill had written. He had accepted his orders without question, like any good soldier would.

  Philip’s expression grew more perplexed as he read. He raised his eyes after a moment and looked directly at Stanley. “Perhaps you could shed a little light on this very odd letter.” Philip held the folded sheet of parchment up before lowering it again and reading aloud. “‘Lord Lampton. With heaviness of mind, I send to you Captain Stanley Jonquil.’”

  Heaviness of mind did not sound promising.

  “‘I commend your good mother and the late earl for raising a young gentleman of such stalwart character. I fear, however, this war has asked too much of him.’”

  Asked too much of him. Stanley shifted his gaze to the dark windows on either side of the fireplace. He clamped his jaw shut so he wouldn’t actually speak the words that flew instantly into his mouth. The war has not merely taken “too much.” It has nearly taken everything.

  “‘Captain Jonquil will require time to heal, and I feel confident that his chance of recovery would be best amongst his family. In a few weeks’ time, I will send a representative to check on his progress. Yours, etc., Hill.’ That was rather ambiguous, don’t you think? Even for the army?”

  Stanley didn’t return Philip’s gaze. Speaking of the war was always easier when the discussion felt impersonal. From the sound of Lord Hill’s letter, Stanley was only to be granted a brief reprieve. He had been hoping for more. Still, he kept his tone neutral. “Lord Hill told me I was returning to England to recuperate for a time, just as his letter said.”

  “Four months after your injury?” Philip asked. “Why were you not sent home sooner?”

  Stanley had managed to make himself useful, even after everything that had happened. He had ridden from Belgium to France to rejoin his men only to watch them be picked off one at a time by embittered French soldiers hell-bent on revenge. No peace treaty on earth seemed capable of stopping the bloodshed of that war.

  “What is going on, Stanley?” Philip asked. “You haven’t written to anyone since you left in March. Now you return unannounced, obviously unwell and injured severely enough that it has reached the attention of Lord Hill, though your own family knew nothing of it. Not a single letter. I have never known you to neglect Mater.”

  Their mother was better off not knowing the particulars of his last six months. Father had told him again and again as a boy that easing Mater’s burdens was the duty of each one of the brothers. Do not add to her troubles, Father had told him. Stanley had done just that and would continue to do so.

  “And what of Marjie?” Philip asked. “She has written to you regularly despite never receiving a reply.”

  Marjie. Her letters had been both treasured and torturous. Her words had forged a connection between the idyllic weeks he’d spent with her and the life he’d been living ever since. The contrast had been horrifying, an inescapable reminder that her world of peaceful innocence was no place for someone who had seen and done what he had.

  He looked back at Philip at last. “How is Marjie?” The question emerged almost breathless, almost soundless.

  “She was standing right next to me. Or didn’t you notice?”

  Stanley had most certainly noticed. Her hair was still the color of a newly minted guinea, her complexion as soft and pink as the gown she’d been wearing. She probably even smelled the same, with just a hint of roses. She hadn’t smiled, however, as he remembered her doing so often during their time together. Faced with his transformation, though, what reason would she have had to do so?

  Stanley shifted in his seat, realizing his soldier’s bearing had slipped. He corrected his stance and reminded himself of his duties.

  Philip released a slow breath. “I’ll have the dinner tray sent to your room. You appear in rather desperate need of rest.”

  Stanley nodded. Rest would be welcome, but he would have to settle for the usual ineffective sleep.

  Philip rose in one fluid motion. Stanley pushed through the belabored steps required to get himself upright. Philip studied him, watching every painstaking moment. Stanley stood as tall as his battered body would allow.

  Expression devoid of emotion, standing almost as if he were before his commanding officer, he offered a crisp, “Good night, Philip.”

  He had a lot of practice on stairs, and it paid dividends in that moment. Relying heavily on the banister kept him upright—that, and his determination to reach his room and escape into the cocoon of solitude. His ascent was slow, but he managed it.

  Pluck, a young soldier who had assumed the role of batman—Stanley’s persona
l servant in the army—shortly after Waterloo, would have the ointment ready when he arrived.

  Stanley reached the door of his bedchamber to find Pluck, as expected, ready and waiting.

  “Laws, Cap’n. I always knew ye was a toff, but you never said ye was an aristocratic-type cove.”

  Stanley sat on the edge of his bed but kept his posture as rigid as ever. Lud, he was tired.

  “I heard so many ‘my lord this’ and ‘my lord that,’ I blasted well thought I was in church.”

  “Quit being blasphemous, and grab the jar of ointment,” Stanley said. “Thought he was in church,” he said under his breath, smiling a little in spite of himself.

  “Is your hand givin’ ye grief again?” Pluck asked, crossing to the shaving table.

  “When is it ever not giving me grief?” Stanley grumbled. He winced as he tugged at the fingers of his glove.

  “I told ye to leave the glove off,” Pluck said. “Gotta let your hand have some fresh air, I say. Cain’t expect it to heal up iffen it’s stuffed into that coffin ye put it in.”

  His hand jerked the rest of the way out of the glove, pain searing across the back of it. He clenched his jaw, pulling a hissing breath in through the minute spaces between his teeth. “A glove is not a coffin.”

  “Might as well be.” Pluck spoke with all the assurance of a general, though he was only a seventeen-year-old private. “That hand of yours ain’t seen the light of day in months.”

  “No one needs to see this.” Stanley glanced only briefly at the mangled mess that had once been his right hand. The basic shape was still there, all five fingers, but the skin was pulled and melted, the color a grotesque and ever-changing mixture of deep reds and purples. Every time he looked at it, the smell of burning flesh returned to his mind.

  “It looks better, Cap’n,” Pluck said.

  “Apparently this isn’t enough like a church to stop you from lying.”

  Pluck laughed. “Ain’t lying. The putrification’s cleared up.”

  His hand had been quite obviously infected only forty-eight hours earlier. Could it really have cleared up so quickly? He looked more closely. The swelling along the back of it and the bright redness between two parallel ridges of warped skin had lessened. The oozing had stopped entirely. “Hmm. Look at that.”

  “Told ye the liquor’d do the trick.” Pluck grinned triumphantly. Pouring a half bottle of brandy on his hand had been one of the more painful of Stanley’s recent experiences—and that was saying something. “Me dad drank more gin than any person I ever knowed. And he weren’t sick a day in his life. Till he died, leastways.”

  “That is very comforting,” Stanley said. “Fetch the ointment and get on with it.”

  “Off with the uniform first,” Pluck said. He always grew nauseatingly chipper when Stanley least wanted to be cheered up. “Ye must be happy to be home again, what with that Miss Kendrick you was always talkin’ about living here and all.”

  That had been an unexpected stroke of bad luck. It had been easier when she was more of a distant memory, when he could keep in his mind the image of her thinking of him the way he had been before.

  Pluck helped him free his arms from the sleeve of his jacket. Stanley tensed against the agony of rough fabric pulling against the open sores on his hand. Pluck applied the ointment. It stung at first but quickly soothed a day’s worth of irritation and chafing. He often wondered if the skin would ever heal entirely. It wasn’t as sensitive as it had been four months earlier.

  Pluck took Stanley’s walking stick and leaned it against the wall near his bed, then stood there for a minute, not looking at Stanley. “You ready?” he asked.

  It was Stanley’s least favorite part of the day. He could almost pretend everything was normal until that moment each night when lying to himself didn’t do any good. He hadn’t written to Mater or Marjie or any of the others. Most men in his situation died of infection; there was no point putting his family through the worry of knowing all that had happened when he would likely end up dead anyway. He knew his duty: do not add to their troubles.

  A few more months and he would be returning to the killing and inhumanity. It would be best to let them think he was going back whole.

  “I’m ready.” Stanley sat so straight and stiff his back ached with the effort.

  Pluck tugged at Stanley’s boots, dropping them one at a time on the floor. “None of them knows, do they?”

  “They don’t need to know.”

  He pulled up the leg of his trousers. The carpenter in Belgium had done a very good job—the basic dimensions were right, and when the replacement was hidden beneath the fabric of his clothing and the rigid leather of his right boot, no one would guess at the deception.

  Stanley worked through the ties and buckles that held everything in place. It was so frighteningly easy to take off now. Four months ago, the process had been excruciating.

  Pluck stood, holding his hands out like he always did, not quite looking Stanley in the eye. It was an unspoken rule between them, a way of not acknowledging everything that had occurred.

  Stanley pushed back a sudden rush of angry tears. He hadn’t cried about this in months, not since the moment the surgeon had first approached with his saw. He took a deep breath, pulling himself together. “Always a soldier” echoed in his mind.

  He yanked the lifeless slab of wood off the stump of his leg and shoved it into Pluck’s hands.

  “Ye ought to tell them, Cap’n,” Pluck said, looking uncharacteristically solemn. “They ought to know. They ought to know what a blasted miracle it is that you lived through it all.”

  Stanley dropped back onto the pillows. He snapped the blanket over his battered and broken body. “Not a miracle,” he muttered. “It’s a deuced shame.”

  Chapter Three

  “Sally Jersey specifically asked if you would be attending Almack’s this evening.”

  Marjie recognized Philip’s voice coming from the book room. The only person in the household whose attendance at Almack’s was in question was Stanley. Marjie paused outside the door, listening for his answer.

  “Then I hope you specifically told her I would not be.”

  Marjie’s heart dropped to her feet.

  She had hardly seen Stanley in the five days since his unexpected return home. She couldn’t very well go into his bedchamber, and he very seldom came out of it. He had not made a point of seeking her out, and other than the occasional “good day” uttered in passing, he had not spoken to her.

  “The rumors of inedible food are, I assure you, a bit exaggerated,” Philip said.

  Marjie slipped quietly inside the book room. Stanley sat near the fireplace, thin to the point of alarm. Before leaving for the Continent, he had been healthy except for a slight weakness in his right arm. Now dark circles marred his undereyes. He’d aged years in those brief months. He limped more than Sorrel did.

  “There is absolutely nothing worth drinking, but the company is congenial.” Philip leaned against the back of the chair opposite Stanley, his relaxed posture and flamboyant attire painting a unique picture. He would most certainly be the only gentleman at Almack’s that evening wearing yellow silk knee breeches. His efforts at subduing his wardrobe were apparently falling short.

  “An evening of dancing is entirely out of the question,” Stanley said. He sat rigidly upright. His words came out tense.

  “Sorrel is attending,” Philip said.

  “Her mobility has improved since I last saw her.”

  “She will never be able to dance,” Philip said. “Yet she attends every Wednesday.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Do come, Stanley.” The words simply fell out of Marjie’s mouth, a plea that had hovered anxiously near the surface ever since she’d entered the room.

  Both gentlemen turned at the sound of her voice. Philip smiled at her. Stanley looked more surprised than happy.

  “Yes.” Philip motioned her over. “Please help me convince him.�
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  Marjie rushed across the room. How she had dreamed of having Stanley at her side at Almack’s and the theatre and the dozens of other gatherings she had attended. If only she could persuade him.

  She sat on the footstool just to the side of Stanley’s chair. He shifted a little away from her and tucked one hand between his leg and the arm of his chair. His posture grew stiffer. His eyes focused on the fireplace.

  He had never been like that before. Always when she had spoken with him, he’d looked at her, truly listened. She had seldom been given such consideration at home.

  But, then, he had been ill. He hadn’t said as much, but his appearance told her the truth of the matter. Some leniency must be granted to one so obviously afflicted.

  “Please come,” Marjie said. Her eyes never left his face, though he still did not look at her. “Philip, as you know, never holds still for five minutes, and Sorrel spends the evenings talking with the other married ladies. I am not asked to dance very often.” Her face heated at the admission. “And I grow terribly lonely sitting by myself. I have so few friends and—” She faltered. Stanley’s eyes had very abruptly focused on her, a look of confusion on his face. Even thin and weary, it was his beloved face. How she longed to reach out and simply touch his cheek to assure herself that he was real. They had embraced only once, on the day he’d left for the Continent, but she had longed to touch him ever since.

  “You do not get asked to dance?” Stanley actually seemed shocked, upset even.

  The heat in Marjie’s cheeks stole down her neck. “I am not very popular. Brunettes are all the rage just now.”

  Stanley shook his head. “Did the gentlemen of London go blind while I was gone?”

  Marjie laughed nervously, his scrutinizing gaze sitting heavily upon her. Did he notice how pallid she appeared in the pastels required of a young lady making her come out? She hoped not.

  “Many very pretty young ladies are out just now.” Marjie tried to make the comment sound light. “They receive a great deal of attention.”

  “And you don’t?” His voice was soft, compassionate, the way it had been so often before his departure.