Page 67 of Engaging Sir Isaac

Esther had found him, inebriated, collapsed on the floor of the library. He had promised her to never dull his pain in that way again.

What was he to do? The raw ache in his heart pulled him apart from the inside. There was no place to go.

Isaac stormed out of his study again and back into the night. He went to the stables, and a groom saddled Prophet for him. It did not matter that he still wore his evening finery. He did not care if it smelled of horse, or if riding pulled every seam out of place.

He went to Jacob.

With Grace’s time drawing near, Jacob did not leave her alone most nights. He hadn’t appeared at Alderton. He had to be home. And a man might confess to his priest without breaking any vows.

The moon waned, nearly gone, but the horse and Isaac knew the way. When he arrived at the house, Isaac knocked loudly. Only one light could be seen, and when Jacob himself answered the door, Isaac met his friend’s startled gaze.

Jacob hadn’t been the vicar long, but the nighttime visit must have been one of dozens he had welcomed. He took one look at Isaac and opened the door wider. They went into the study, and when Isaac sat in a chair beside his friend, he cried at last.

It was not the desperate sobs of a broken man. But the slow, steady tears of a creature too long in pain. Millie’s rejection, her claim of betrayal, had undone him. Where he thought he had grown stronger, for her sake, he realized he had only created a hole in the wall around his heart and given everything he kept inside a way out at last.

Jacob listened. He listened as Isaac told him of the war, of firing into a line of men to watch them fall. Wondering if his had been the shot to take a life amidst the chaos of smoke and blood. He made no comment when Isaac spoke of watching his men die from wounds inflicted in battle. Isaac spoke of grown men weeping like boys, of cowards failing to act and costing lives, of generals who moved them about like pieces on a board rather than men with beating hearts.

Then Jacob asked questions. Gentle questions, probing Isaac to reveal still more of what he had kept hidden. His failure as a friend and brother in regard to Esther. His reluctance to return to Society.

His brokenness, that was so much more than the lack of an arm.

The hour grew later, and Isaac gulped in air. “I am like a man caught at the bottom of a well,” he said at last, into the quiet room and Jacob’s attentive ears. “I must tread water or drown. But I cannot climb out and save myself. So I struggle to keep my head above water, hoping rescue will come, but it never does.”

When Jacob answered him, Isaac saw tears in his friend’s eyes. “I have worried for you. Prayed for you. I knew you were not as healed and whole as you pretended, but I did not know you needed me. I am sorry I let you do this alone for so long, Isaac.”

Though his friend’s words touched him, Isaac shrugged. “I did not want your help. Or anyone’s. But I cannot do this anymore.”

“No one can face what you have and remain whole,” Jacob said quietly. “You are not the first soldier I have spoken to, you will likely not be the last. Isaac, you are not alone. Healing will come with time, with faith, and with love.”

“Love.” Isaac groaned and folded himself in half where he sat. “That is what brought me here at last. But not God’s love, as I suspect you meant.”

Jacob’s lips twitched, though his eyes remained heavy. “Of course I mean God’s love. And your family’s, and your friends’. But who is it that drove you here? Miss Wedgewood?”

“You heard about the time we spent in each other’s company?”

“No.” Jacob’s smile turned sympathetic. “Seeing you both together that night at dinner, when you were oblivious to her, and then again the night of the bonfire when you could not keep your eyes from her—it was such a contrast. For a woman to gain your interest with such speed, I knew she must be unique. Special to you.”

“Yet I am nothing to her. What I say to you tonight, it is in confidence?”

Jacob nodded once, a solemnity about him that soothed what remained of Isaac’s concerns.

Isaac kept talking, explaining everything to Jacob. Everything. Even kissing her. His friend did not offer censure, nor jest, but listened with his full attention. When Isaac came to the end of the disaster, to Millie’s parting words, his voice faded away to nothing.

The clock on the mantel marked the passage of time. It was two o’clock in the morning. Isaac was nearly hoarse with talking, his eyes dry and burning. He rubbed at his eyes, yet the ache remained both there and in his chest. He met Jacob’s gaze and waited, hoping for wisdom, for guidance.

Jacob’s smile returned, the shadow of one he had often worn in their youth. Goading. “What will you do now?”

Isaac’s thoughts halted. “What?”

Jacob repeated himself, slowly. “What will you do now, Isaac?”

“Are you not supposed to tell me?” Isaac asked, sitting back and gripping the arm of the chair.

His friend relaxed, his shoulders dropping and his smile growing. “I am a vicar, not a prophet. I have listened to all you have said. I offer you my support, my prayers, and a listening ear. Your struggles are real, and they are all in your heart. I cannot tell you what to do, but I can encourage you in your next steps. That is why I ask you, my friend, what will you do?”

Isaac opened and closed his mouth multiple times, then stood and paced away from the chair, hearth, Jacob, and to the window. He stared out into the darkness, the light behind him only reflecting the shadowed room to him in the glass.

“What will I do.” He pulled in a deep breath, then let it out in a laugh. “Take each day as I have, I suppose. One moment at a time.”