Christ. Maybe he was a bloody hero, after all. “What do you want me to do?”
Cam rose to his feet to pace the room. “Persuade her to leave London. She’d be safe at Hadley House for the winter, or Bellwood, if she prefers it. We think she stays here for Devon. Get in his way. If you can make it difficult for him to get access to her—”
“He’ll give up,” Ellie said. “Then she’ll have no reason to stay in London.”
Christ.What an ungodly mess. A drama worthy of a cold, selfish marchioness. Or a cavalry captain, for it seemed the mess was about to be dumped in his lap, whether he liked it or not. “One week. That’s all. I’ll do what I can to see Lady Hadley is at Bellwood by the end of it.”
Ellie clasped his hand tightly in both of hers. “Oh, thank you, Julian!”
Cam stopped pacing. “How will you do it? I warn you, Julian, it won’t be easy—rather like chasing an extremely clever fox down every alleyway in London.” He gave Ellie a fond look. “The Sutherland women are wily.”
But Charlotte wasn’t a Sutherland anymore. “I’ll think of something.”
Ellie rose to her feet and kissed Julian on the cheek. “You’re a wonderful cousin, Julian.” She turned to Cam. “I think I can sleep again now.”
“I’m going to stay up with Jules for a while.” Cam pressed his lips to her forehead. “Good night, love.”
After the door closed on Ellie, Cam and Julian returned to their chairs and stared into the fire until Cam roused himself. “What’s the truth about your heroics on the battlefield, Jules?”
Julian gave a bitter laugh. “Let’s just say the truth doesn’t make for a pretty headline, and leave it at that.”
Cam considered this, then shook his head. “Even the most exaggerated story contains a thread of truth.”
“Not this one. There was nothing so grand in it. Any other man would have done the same thing I did.”
“Perhaps, but it wasn’t any other man. It wasyou.”
“Oh, yes, it was me.” Julian downed his whiskey, but the bitterness still burned his throat. “And while I was running about the battlefield that day, dozens of men were slaughtered in my place. But London doesn’t seem to care much about who was left behind.”
“Whowasleft behind?” Cam’s voice was quiet.
Julian shrugged, but his fingers tightened around his whiskey glass. “It doesn’t make any difference now, does it? One rotting corpse looks much like another.”
“It sounds as if it makes a great deal of difference to you.” Cam placed his own glass on the table with a careful click. “But as tragic as those deaths are, you aren’t responsible for them. You couldn’t save them all, Julian.”
Not all. One. I should have saved one.
But he wouldn’t tell the rest of that story tonight. It was hardly a bedtime story. He rose and set his glass on the sideboard. “I’m for bed.”
“Jules?”
Julian was halfway out the door, but he turned back. “Cuz?”
Cam cleared his throat. “I’m damned glad you’re home at last. I can’t tell you…” His voice grew thick, and he trailed off into silence.
“I’m damned glad to be home.” God knew he owed a debt of gratitude to whatever higher power had kept him alive this past year. He shuddered to think how many times he wouldn’t have wagered a farthing on his own life. “I don’t care for the idea ofmycorpse rotting away on some battlefield.”
Cam flinched. “No. But here you are, not a whiff of rot about you, and it’s as if you’d never left.”
Julian stiffened. Is that what Cam thought? That he was the same man he’d ever been?
He gazed at his cousin. Cam’s legs were stretched out before him, his feet close to the fire as he sipped at his whiskey. He and Cam had sat in these same chairs in front of this same fireplace more times than Julian could count, and yet the moment felt strangely foreign to him, as if he’d slipped through a tear in time, or as if he were watching the scene unfold from a great distance.
No matter how much he wanted it to be the same as it always was, he hadn’t been home more than a day before he felt like he’d stolen this life from the man he used to be—the man whoshouldhave it. The old Julian would never have grabbed a woman the way he had that dark- haired doxy, and he’d never have treated Charlotte like a whore, no matter how angry he was. This man he’d become—he had a dark, ugly thing living inside him, and there was no telling when it would get loose, or what it would do when it did.
It never could be the same as it had before, becausehecould never be the same.
But he couldn’t explain it to Cam. He wouldn’t even know where to begin. “Yes. It’s just as if I never left. Good night, cuz.”
