She sucked in a breath, quick and painful. “Jamie died where he fell, or near enough to it. Near the beginning of the charge. I never saw him, after. Would it have prevented some of the nightmares, had I? Or worsened them? It wasn’t my choice, not seeing him. When the cavalry has retreated over the same ground from— They could not recover Jamie before the retreat. They did later find...” She shut her eyes briefly. “There is a stone for him in a kirkyard in Brussels, but that was all I had to grieve over, that stone.”
Although perhaps it was best that her last memory of Jamie was of him hale and whole, the grin on his face just before he kissed her that first won her over as a girl in Edinburgh.
“I remained with Cornet Forbes. He was out of his head with pain and fever. Most of Jamie’s fellow officers were kindness themselves. Solicitous of my feelings when they spoke to me but scrupulous about what they deemed proper to relay.” She laughed softly, but it was devoid of amusement.
“I was grateful, truly, to learn what I did from Cornet Forbes. Although... These nightmares... I suppose some irrational corner of my mind must believe now that I could have saved him. Jamie. Maybe Cornet Forbes or the young Highlander. Any of the men whose hands I held, whose woundsI tended and brows I wiped, who did not leave Brussels and Antwerp alive.”
She swallowed away the grief that strangled her voice. A tear slid warm down her cheek and across the bridge of her nose as she mastered her emotions, until her voice was her own once more. “So if I am driven now to find Lucy... Irrational a hope as it may be, however improbable, I might yet save her.” She twisted under the blanket onto her back.
Nathaniel moved up onto one elbow beside her.
“There may yet be a better outcome than what my brain conjures up at night,” she said softly. “I am afeared of it still, what has become of Lucy. Awakeandsleeping. I know I place myself in danger in looking for her, but I have no one else. I must try, for her sake and my own, no matter the outcome.” She looked upwards into Nathaniel’s face.
There was light enough now to clearly delineate his features. His words, when he finally spoke, took her by surprise. “You could teach many of courage.” His free hand came along her jaw, lightly, his thumb brushing her cheekbone where another tear tracked.
The touch was not carnal, nor intended as such. But their faces were scant inches apart. His hand on her face stilled. His eyes... She could read them now, and her breath caught.
Vulnerability transmuted into something differently intimate. Awareness sizzled between them.
For a moment, with every fiber of her being, shewanted. Wanted to reach out, to seek a new kind of comfort from him, to take what was in his eyes and return it.
He pushed himself off the bed, and she released her breath. Long after he quit the rooms to check downstairs for notes, she still felt his hand against her cheek.
She had an answer now for what he might have done, had she rolled over to face him as he woke.
After disembarking near the Porte Saint-Denis, Nate chose a circuitous route through several ruelles.He walked a half step behind Isobel, scanning as usual for any undue interest from others on the street, until they arrived at L'Orchidée’s back entrance. He told himself sternly that it was just as well he needed to remain alert given it inhibited conversation.
Isobel also seemed to feel no need to converse as she stepped carefully on the rutted pavement. She was once more wearing her own sturdy boots; they peeked out from beneath the hem of the plain cloak supplied for when she was not arrayed as Beaumont’s companion. He himself wore inconspicuous clothing again, none of Beaumont’s flashier finery, hat pulled low over his brow and scarf muffling part of his face.
Amélie rose at once when they entered her private sitting room, taking Isobel’s hands. “Come,ma chère,there is coffee here, hot, orchocolat chaudmay be brought up if you prefer? I myself started with the chocolate and am now having coffee.”
“Coffee would be most welcome, but please do not trouble yourself to pour for me.”
“Quel balivernes!” Amélie said. “I am your hostess still, whatever are these unusual circumstances. Milk again, without sugar?”
Isobel straightened her skirt after sitting. “Yes, please.”
Amélie prepared Isobel’s cup. “I will ring for some food besides.” Her eyes moved shrewdly between Isobel and himself.
He sat in silence as a maid discreetly took Amélie’s quiet directions.
He’d bucked up the courage of men in his company on the verge of fleeing when panic filled their minds and loosened their guts before battle. He’d been woken by men with tormented dreams. He’d lived through scenes of bloodshed. Had quiteactively contributed to arguably necessary carnage, especially among theguerrilleros.
But he was left out of sorts by this morning.
When Isobel’s first dream came, he was yet awake. At first he thought she’d woken, but when he heard her voice, words twisted and indistinct, he realized she was in another nightmare. Most of her words were garbled, unintelligible saveJamie, once, anguished. She sat upright, body rigid and arms groping in front of her. Gentle pressure on her shoulders and a few soft words, and she lay back down. She never fully woke as he replaced the blankets around her.
He more than half expected the next dream when it came, was listening for it. She made a strangled noise, something between a sob and a scream caught in her throat. Her eyes were open, unseeing. She pushed frantically at her night rail like she couldn’t bear it against her skin. When he knelt beside her, she first gripped his wrists, then put her arms around his neck, clinging for dear life as breaths were torn from her.
He held her until her frame softened. He slept once she did.
And sometime between then and now, he’d misplaced his equilibrium entirely.
He’d also had half a cockstand in the moments after waking. Not surprising, first thing in the morning, to say nothing of it having been some time since he’d had any release save that of his own hand. While inconvenient, ignoring his cock was a matter of discipline.
What he’d not anticipated was the stirring of emotions he barely recognized, with his arms around her as she made herself vulnerable to him and put her anguish into words. Certainly she did not need his protection, nor had she asked for it, but she’d trusted in what he offered. She’d relaxed in his arms as though she belonged there.
She had a great wealth of inner strength. The more he learnedof her history, the more he appreciated just how deep her strength ran. He admired her for how she had responded to a series of events that could have broken her or paralyzed her from moving forward. He had meant it in all sincerity, that she had more courage than many would have had under similar circumstances, woman or man.
