“I never resent a bit of pain,” Ben said without denying it. “At least it reminds me that I still have my legs.”
“But—?”
George had not himself fought in the wars, though he had once been a military officer. His only son had fought, though, and had died in Portugal. His wife, the boy’s mother, perhaps overcome with grief, flung herself to her death from the cliffs at the edge of the estate not long after. When he had opened his home to the six of them, as well as to others, George had been as wounded as any of them. He probably still was.
“I will walk. Idowalk after a fashion. And I will dance one day.” Ben smiled ruefully. That had always been his boast, and the others often teased him about it.
No one teased now.
“But—?” It was Hugo this time.
“But I will never do either as I once did,” Ben said. “I suppose I have known it for a long time. I would be a fool not to have done so. But it has taken me six years to face up to the fact that I will never walk more than a few steps without my canes—plural—and that I will never move more than haltingly with them. I will never get my life back as it was. I will always be a cripple.”
“A harsh word, that,” Ralph said with a frown. “And a bit defeatist?”
“It is the simple truth,” Ben said firmly. “It is time to accept reality.”
The duke rested his elbows on the arms of his chair and steepled his fingers. “And accepting reality involves giving up and calling yourself a cripple?” he said. “You would never have got up off your bed, Benedict, if you had done that from the start. Indeed, you would have agreed to allow the army sawbones to relieve you of your legs altogether.”
“Admitting the truth does not mean giving up,” Ben told him. “But it does mean assessing reality and adjusting my life accordingly. I was a career military officer and never envisaged any other life for myself. I did notwantany other life. I was going to end up a general. I have lived and toiled for the day when I could have that old life back. It is not going to happen, though. It never was. It is time I admitted it openly and dealt with it.”
“You cannot be happy with a life outside the army?” Imogen asked.
“Oh, I can be,” Ben assured her. “Of course I can. And will. It is just that I have spent six years denying reality, with the result that at this late date I still have no idea what the futuredoeshold for me. Or what I want of the future. I have wasted those years yearning for a past that is long gone and will never return. You see? Iamwhining, and you could all be sleeping peacefully in your beds by now.”
“I would r-rather be here,” Flavian said. “If one of us ever goes away from here unhappy because he c-couldn’t bring himself to confide in the rest of us, then we m-might as well stop coming. George lives at the back of beyond here in Cornwall, after all. Who would want to c-come just for the scenery?”
“He is right, Ben.” Vincent grinned. “Iwould not come for the scenery.”
“You are not going home when you leave here, Ben,” George said. It was a statement, not a question.
“Beatrice—my sister—needs company,” Ben explained with a shrug. “She had a lingering chill through the winter and is only now getting her strength back with the spring. She does not feel up to moving to London when Gramley goes up after Easter for the opening of the parliamentary session. And her boys will be away at school.”
“The Countess of Gramley is fortunate to have such an agreeable brother,” the duke said.
“We were always particularly fond of each other,” Ben told him.
But he had not answered George’s implied question. And since the answer was a large part of the depression his friends had noticed, he felt obliged to give it. Flavian was right. If they could not share themselves with one another here, their friendship and these gatherings would lose meaning.
“Whenever I go home to Kenelston,” he said, “Calvin is unwilling to let me to do anything. He does not want me to set foot in the study or talk to my estate agent or visit any of my farms. He insists upon doing everything that needs to be done himself. His manner is always cheerful and hearty. It is as if he believes my brain has been rendered as crooked as my legs. And Julia, my sister-in-law, fusses over me, even to the point of clearing a path before me whenever I emerge from my own apartments. The children are allowed the run of the house, you see, and run they do, strewing objects as they go. She has my meals served in my private apartments so that I will not have to exert myself to go down to the dining room. She—they both go a fair way, in fact, toward smothering me with kindness until I leave again.”
“Ah,” George said. “Now we get to the heart of the matter.”
“They really do fear me,” Ben said. “They fairly pulsate with anxiety every moment I am there.”
“I daresay your younger brother and his wife grew accustomed to thinking of your home as their own during the years you were here as a patient and then as a convalescent,” George said. “But you left here three years ago, Benedict.”
Why had he not at that time taken possession of his own home and somehow forced his brother to make other provisions for his own family? That was the implied question. The trouble was, Ben did not have an answer, other than procrastination. Or out-and-out cowardice. Or—something else.
He sighed. “Families are complex.”
“They are,” Vincent agreed with fervor. “I feel for you, Ben.”
“My elder brother and Calvin were always very close,” Ben explained. “It was almost as if I, tucked in the middle, did not exist. Not that there was any hostility, just…indifference. I was their brother and they were mine, and that was that. Wallace was only ever interested in a future in politics and government. He lived in London, both before and after our father’s death. When he succeeded to the baronetcy, he made it very clear that he was not in any way interested in either living at Kenelston or running the estate. Since Calvin was interested in both, and since he also married early and started a family, the two of them came to an arrangement that brought them mutual satisfaction. Calvin would live in the house and administer the estate for a consideration, and Wallace would pay the bills and draw on the proceeds but not have to bother his head about running any of it. Calvin didnotexpect—none of us did—that a loaded cart would topple onto Wallace near Covent Garden and kill him outright. It was too bizarre. That happened just a short while before I was wounded. I was not expected to survive either. Even after I was brought back to England and then here, I was not expected to live.Youdid not expect it, George, did you?”
“On the contrary,” the duke said. “I looked into your eyes the day you were brought here, Benedict, and knew you were too stubborn to die. I almost regretted it. I have never seen anyone suffer more pain than you. Your younger brother assumed, then, that the title and fortune and Kenelston itself would soon be entirely his?”
“It must have been a severe blow to him,” Ben said with a rueful smile, “when I lived. I am sure he has never forgiven me, though that makes him sound malicious, and really he is not. When I am away from home, he can carry on as he has since our father died. When I am there, he no doubt feels threatened—and with good reason. Everything is mine by law, after all. And if Kenelston is not to be my home, wherewillbe?”
