“You are young for a major. I remember Arthur telling me that.”
“Blackheart jokes that I’ll be the first general in our line.” Luke’s heart squeezed tight. Would she regard him as a coward?
“You don’t want to continue fighting.”
Her words sounded so simple and yet resigning his position was frustratingly complicated. “Six men died over the course of my last mission. Six men lost under my watch. It’s senseless.” Luke explained that with each advance, he was coming to realize they weren’t fighting to protect England or righting wrongs, but they wereoccupiers. The missions had nothing to do with good vs. evil. They were necessary to expand the kingdom. Expand and then subdue leftover resistance to “open up trade.”
Luke had followed every order he’d been given.
“An officer isn’t supposed to question the cause,” he finished.
He squeezed his eyes shut, hating that he was telling her this but somehow unable to keep himself from doing so.
She squeezed his hand again. “For as long as there are men, there will be wars.”
“Cockfields aren’t quitters,” he continued. “or cowards.” He came from a long line of gentlemen who’d made a difference in the world. And yet even his own father had joked that Luke would end up like his mother’s younger brother who lived the indolent lifestyle of a dandy.
Luke didn’t know how many more killings he could participate in before nothing good remained in him. Military men accepted their losses and moved on. Those who didn’t were considered weak.
Accepting human losses was something he’d failed at from the beginning.
“You intend to resign?”
“I want to but I haven’t decided yet. It’s why I’m in no hurry to travel to Crescent Park.” He glanced up, bracing himself for the disappointment he would surely see.
She was staring at him, and since they were sitting so close to one another, he could see both the cobalt and silver flecks in her eyes. The disdain he expected was noticeably absent.
Instead, he saw understanding. And he saw… admiration.
“Dearest Luke.” She tilted her head. “You are no coward. When we first met, Arthur spoke of you with more than a little awe. Almost as though you were too good of a person to befriend such a rogue as him.” She smiled fondly. “He was particularly impressed with one particular incident--a schoolhouse that had caught fire in the small town your unit occupied. He said everyone had given up on two small children who’d been unaccounted for, but you ran in and saved them.”
Luke waved a hand through the air, shaking his head. “Anyone would do that.”
“But no one else did. And what you did mattered. It meant the world to their mother. You are no coward.”
He smiled grimly, uncomfortable discussing himself.
Running into that fire hadn’t cost him anything, whereas he’d cost others so much.
“I’m surprised Arthur had anything good to say about me back then.”
“Why?”
Was he really going to tell her all of this right now?
He stared straight ahead, not really seeing the autumn splendor but remembering springtime in London. “Do you remember when we danced? At the Willoughby Ball? And then when I rowed the two of us around the lake at Lady Chamberlayne’s Garden party?”
“I remember that you were quite charming. The ladies didn’t stand a chance against so many handsome officers last spring.” She glanced down at where her hand rested on. “Of course, I remember, Luke.”
He sat silently considering the wisdom of yet another embarrassing admission. Likely by the time he finished talking with her this morning, she’d be anxious to send him on his way.
And yet her comforting presence him had him telling her anyway.
“Later that evening, following the garden party…” Luke turned his head and caught her gaze. “I informed Gil that I was going to court you. Of course, you’d already given Gil permission to do so. We nearly came to blows over it… over you.” He’d been disappointed. He hadn’t known her long enough to be devastated.
In the end, Luke had stepped away. He wasn’t the sort to thwart a friend like that.
A pretty blush turned Naomi’s cheeks a gentle rose color.
