Together, they had witnessed hell on earth. What he had endured on his own was a level beyond that, a tenth circle of hell, as it were. Inexplicable. And he would not lie. He envied Crispin for escaping as he had, with nothing but a sore head and a return voyage to London to take his seat as the heir. All while Morgan had lingered as a captive of first the guerrillas and then the French. All while he had been beaten and interrogated, while he had been humiliated and abused in vile fashion.
None of that had been Crispin’s fault, it was true. Rather, it had been the fault ofEl Corazón Oscuro. Which was why he was standing here, in this ballroom, dressed as if he cared about waltzing and bowing and commenting upon the size of the gathering and the quality of the lords and ladies strutting about the room.
Peacocks, all of them.
But could he blame them, truly blame them? He had been a peacock once, too, after all. It had been only his time abroad and his years as a soldier that had rendered him any different. Those times had made him who he was today.
“Yes,” Crispin said then. “I am damned glad to be seeing you at all. You have the way of it, precisely. I missed you, old friend. I…when I believed you gone…”
“But here I am,” he interrupted quickly. Coldly, too. For truth be told, he could not bear any reminders. His overtaxed body and mind could not endure returns to what had happened. Even mere thoughts made him shake like a tree at the mercy of a violent wind.
He understood the problem was likely his and not anyone else’s. It had taken him a solid fortnight upon his return to London before he could even leave his townhome. Before he could step a bloody foot out the goddamned front door. It had taken him just as long to understand what had befallen him as a soldier had changed him. It had changed him forever, and there would be no return to the Morgan he had been before.
There was only the hardened shell remaining now.
“Yes,” Crispin echoed solemnly. “Here you are.”
He said it as if the words were somehow untrue. And his friend was not wrong in this, for they were untrue, in part.
His attempt at a smile went flat. “War changes us.”
“That day,” Crispin began. “Your hand…I do not understand.”
“The severed hand did not belong to me. Only the signet ring did,” he bit out, for this was the last thing he wished to discuss ever, let alone at a ball in the midst of polite London society.
He understood Crispin’s confusion. Though much of what had happened on that day in Spain remained mired in a part of his mind he had deliberately closed off, he could not suppress the image of one ofEl Corazón Oscuro’sminions sliding his signet rink onto the pinky of one of the butchered French soldiers. The Spaniard had raised a deadly looking blade, and chopped the Frenchman’s wrist with one swift blow.
The fallen soldier had not yet been dead, which had made the scene even more gruesome. Sometimes, Morgan still heard the poor bastard’s scream in his nightmares.
“But the reason for what occurred,” Crispin continued. “I am deuced gladEl Corazón Oscuroleft you whole, but—”
“I can assure you I am not whole,” Morgan stayed him bitterly. “But I will not discuss this with you further, Cris. Not here. Not now.”
Not ever.
Mere thoughts of what had happened made him lose control of his body. Already, a cold sweat broke out on his skin and his hands tremored.
Crispin’s jaw ticked. “Then when, Morgan? You have been avoiding this dialogue ever since your return. You are my oldest and greatest friend. I thought you dead. I mourned you. Can you not imagine I would wish to revisit that day, to understand what occurred?”
What had occurred was that Morgan and Crispin had been ambushed byEl Corazón Oscuro. Crispin had been left behind, and Morgan had been taken. It was as simple and as complicated as that. What came after that day…he could not think it. Could not face it.
He ground his molars with so much force his jaw ached. “Can you not imagine I would not wish to revisit that day, Cris? I have come here tonight in search of a wife, not to dwell upon the hells of war.”
Crispin’s brows shot upward. “You are seeking a wife?”
He well understood his friend’s surprise. He had always sworn off the parson’s mousetrap, having seen the damage such an institution could do to two people. His own sire and mother had been at daggers drawn for the entirety of their union. They had hated each other with a vicious vengeance. His father’s wrath had run so deep he had refused to even share a roof with his mother.
But this was different, and he had a reason for seeking a wife. Not just any wife. One woman only. His eyes traveled once more to Lady Leonora. She possessed an icy, regal elegance. A beauty that took his breath. But she also had something else—a hesitance, perhaps. As if she were embarrassed of something. As if she were unsure of herself.
He could use her weakness to his advantage.
“I am contemplating marriage,” he said, continuing to watch as the turban—still presumably the lady’s mother—glanced in his direction and then began fluffing her skirts as if she were a hen in the house, ruffling her feathers. “Since my return, I have been visited by an affliction of sorts. I now possess a healthy respect for my own mortality, and the need to secure the line has risen within me, stronger than ever before.”
The turban fixed a smile to her lips and appeared to surreptitiously deliver orders to Lady Leonora. Lady Leonora fidgeted her skirts, draping them over the limb he had noted her favoring earlier. Yes, there it was. Her infirmity was the source of the hesitancy he sensed.
Of course it would be. He imagined her sobriquet, Limping Leonora, would also be a great source of pain for her. She looked about the ballroom then, as if in search of someone. He willed her to look in his direction. To see him. But she did not.
“You are interested in Lady Leonora Forsythe?” Crispin asked quietly, dredging him from his inspection of the lady in question.
