Fall from Trace

by Rebecca Connolly

  Mrs. Blaine hummed, but turned away and hurried back down the lane, no doubt anxiously seeking someone else to investigate.

  A rough exhale escaped Poppy, and she sputtered noisily like a horse, turning on her heel to stride out of Moulton as quickly as possible. The village had never truly suited her with its meddlesome inhabitants and attempts at bustling, though it was too small to be anything except cluttered. The high and mighty were aplenty here, even though their influence extended only so far as the town boundaries.

  For some reason, they’d always had a keen interest in this fallen daughter of a respectable family.

  She’d always treated them well regardless of their interest, hiding her spite so well it could never be detected in her replies, but she raged about them once safely away and able to walk, skip, or run her way home.

  There wasn’t anything to be done about it, but it felt good to rage privately.

  Poppy inhaled and exhaled calming breaths through her nose, glancing at Mrs. Brown’s cottage as she passed. The friendly woman was nowhere to be seen, which was a pity. She’d always taken care of Poppy despite what others had said, and a good cup of tea in her kitchen could soothe a world of pain.

  She wouldn’t have stopped today, but it might have helped to see a smiling face and wave.

  Beyond Mrs. Brown’s, she was safer to express her irritation appropriately, and she did so, gritting her teeth and screeching up at the sky. She exhaled a rough pant of air and removed her bonnet, shaking her head moodily.

  It hadn’t been pleasant living in Moulton all this time, but sometimes she really felt the pains of it more than others. Couldn’t anybody see that she was doing the best she could? Wouldn’t anyone praise her for adjusting from the daughter of a respectable family to a capable and mildly successful farmer?

  Would they always see only her downfall when they saw her?

  “Damn this place,” Poppy hissed, swiping her bonnet across the side of her leg.

  “That bad?”

  She jumped with a small yelp, eyes wide, and turned to see Alex there. Somehow, he’d managed to sneak up to walk beside her without her noticing.

  She frowned. “Where did you come from?”

  He jerked his thumb behind him, smiling at her.

  “Mr. Taylor. Stanton asked me to take some tools to him for repair, and I needed the walk.”

  Poppy looked at him, looked behind her, then back to him.

  “How did you come up here without me noticing?”

  “I’m a spy,” he replied with a wide, mischievous grin.

  Poppy blinked at him, then scowled. “How long have you been wanting to use that line on me for anything you could?”

  “Ages,” he groaned, sweeping his hands behind his back and clasping them. “Ages and ages.”

  “I thought you might,” she muttered, continuing to walk towards home. “I’m going to have to go over every moment of our entire lives to find the places where that little fact makes sense.”

  Alex made a soft noise of amusement as he fell into place beside her. “Well, you can avoid the years before I was eighteen.”

  Poppy glanced up at him, an odd hitch in her lungs rendering her speechless for a moment. “That young?”

  “No,” he said quickly, “I didn’t begin until much later. But that’s when I started showing the proper aptitude, I’ve been told.”

  Eighteen. When he’d gone off to the army, and she’d begun to fear for his life. How long had she needed to fear for it and hadn’t? When he’d left her the final time and his death had been reported to her, she hadn’t known there was any danger to see to. He hadn’t given her any indication, and he never had, that what he was doing was in any way dangerous.

  All he’d said was that he needed to see to some interests in London, and she’d accepted that. He was always dashing off to this place or that, and the one time she’d enjoyed a Season in London, she’d never seen him. They’d exchanged letters, but she’d had no idea where they were coming from. Supposedly, he’d been off with the Army and unable to get away.

  Now that she knew the truth, she wondered.

  When had his army time ended, and his spy life begun? Or had they been simultaneous?

  “You’re not a spy now,” she murmured softly, a bitter pang burning her throat. “Unless you’ve lied about that, as well.”

  A faint hiss met her ears, but she couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t see the pain that she still heard every night as he slept. Couldn’t see the guilt he seemed to struggle with.

  “I didn’t,” Alex told her. “I’m not a spy now. I may never be again. There’s too much… too much I remember, and too much to forget.”

  “You can tell me, Alex,” Poppy insisted. “You can tell me anything.”

  “Not this,” he rasped, shaking his head. “Not this.”

  Poppy bit the inside of her lip and walked in silence, wondering how long she could be patient in this. Or why it was so important to her to know.

  He didn’t have to tell her, in truth. It wasn’t her place to know, didn’t concern her at all, and would serve no purpose.

  Except she was now caught up in his life again, and she had been left without answers four and a half years ago. She was growing ever more concerned that she did not know the man beside her at all.

  If she’d not seen the proof of his suffering, and heard it as well, she might have been more forceful, more demanding, more insistent that answers were due. As it was, she would say nothing more on the subject.

  For now.

  “Stanton told me that Fritz and Gabe didn’t go back with the others,” Poppy said with a slight clearing of the throat, “and that they intend to help finish the harvest.”

  Alex stared at her for a long moment, then nodded once. “Yes, Gabe decided to remain with me, and Fritz said he needed to help with some situation at Branbury.”

  “That’s a lie,” Poppy retorted bluntly. “He’s staying to keep you in his line of sight.”

  A warm chuckle beside her sent an unexpected ripple of delight down her spine. “He is, yes, and Gabe, being my cousin, needs no excuse.”

  Poppy glanced up at him, finally smiling. “You’re very fond of him, aren’t you?”

  “I am,” he confirmed. “We’ve always been more like brothers. I’m glad he stayed; we can use the time together.”

  “Good,” Poppy murmured, surprised that she meant it so fervently.

  Alex was apparently surprised, as well. “Why aren’t you mad at me anymore?”

  Poppy sighed and squinted up at the sky. “I figured seeing the evidence of what you suffered negated my right to indignation.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  She snorted once. “You want me to be mad at you?”

  Alex seemed to shrug without really shrugging. “I think I would feel better about things if you were.”

  “Well,” she responded with a smirk, “I won’t claim to be perfectly content with the situation, now that I know what it is…”

  “That’s a promising beginning.”

  Poppy exhaled softly. “But I don’t know that I’ll rage at you after all.”

  She didn’t miss the way Alex’s breath caught at her words. “No?”

  She shook her head. “No. At least… not now.”

  Alex said nothing to that, but tentatively, he slid his hand into her free one, his fingers curving around hers.

  She let them, giving his hand a brief squeeze in return.

  “Torchon! Torchon! Tu n’es rien! Et ils vous appellent Trace? Trace! Nous vous voyons…”

  Crack!

  Alex bolted upright with a choked cry, heart racing, his skin tingling in anticipation of the lash that had been forthcoming with the taunting of his captors. He looked around, panting frantically, but the darkened room was silent and empty. No boat, no captors, no lash, and no danger whatsoever. Only the taunting words echoing in his head. “Dishcloth! Dishcloth! You are nothing! And they call you Trace? Trace. We see y
ou!”

  Exhaling shakily and swallowing hard, he ran his hands over his hair, gripping the back of his neck almost painfully tight. His skin was damp with perspiration, and tremors coursed through him in waves, deeply rooted fear coming to light in the confines of his nightmares.

  He couldn’t even remember most of what he’d been dreaming, but the content didn’t matter. It was all the same.

  Memories… and the imagined scenarios if he hadn’t escaped, none of which were beyond the realm of possibility. The voices that had mocked him were well known, the taunts they had used were old ones, and still each one ate away at whatever remained of his soul. Would he ever be rid of any of it?

  His throat clenched in distress, and he gasped at the sensation.

  Alex swung his legs over the edge of the bed and moved to the window, wiping at his brow with the sleeve of his nightshirt. He gripped the windowsill tightly, staring out at the moonlit lands without truly seeing any of it.

  This had to stop. The nightmares were incessant, each one as violent and harrowing as the last, and despite his exhaustion each day, there was no reprieve from the terror he woke with.

  If it continued much longer, he would be asking Stanton to drug him with laudanum every night just to sleep completely. He had no desire to become addicted to the stuff, but the idea of truly resting and not dreading what may come in his most vulnerable moments was a temptation he was not above succumbing to.

  He turned to the bowl of water nearby and splashed his face, patted the skin with a nearby towel, then reached for his trousers and slid them on. He needed the night air and a drink if he wanted any hope of returning to sleep. Not that he expected he would, given the new depths of disturbance his nightmares had taken him to, but the attempt would be important.

  And they wanted him to go back to the League? He was barely managing from day to day, there was no possible way he could take on covert operations and the responsibility of other lives as he was.

  His own life was questionable enough.

  The kitchen fire was built up, which seemed odd for the middle of the night, and Alex stopped, staring at it.

  “Couldn’t sleep?” a soft, sleepy voice asked.

  Alex turned to see Poppy sitting at the large table, wrapped in a thick, grey shawl, her hair loosely plaited, the copper color muted by the light of the fire. Her eyes were soft on him, but also held a knowing light he wasn’t sure he cared for.

  She shouldn’t know anything. She shouldn’t be awake. She shouldn’t be here.

  “No,” Alex mumbled, scratching the back of his neck absently. “You?”

  She shook her head and gestured for him to sit. “Please, join me.”

  His first instinct was to refuse her, to avoid staring at her when she looked this rumpled, to keep himself from the power of her eyes and save himself… but he only stood there.

  Staring anyway.

  “I was going to take a walk,” he told her distractedly, eyes fixed on her. “Night air and all that.”

  Poppy nodded slowly, smiling a little. “I understand. You don’t have to join me if you’d rather walk.”

  There was nothing petulant in her tone in any way, but suddenly there was a sense of guilt rising within him about leaving her for the solitude of the night. He didn’t want to hurt her, and certainly didn’t want her to think that he was avoiding her or didn’t wish to be in her presence.

  But…

  He pulled out the chair closest and sat roughly, rubbing his hands over his face. Then he looked over at Poppy and smiled a little.

  “We really need to stop meeting like this.”

  “Yes.” She chuckled and leaned back in her chair. “The middle of the night does seem to be our most frequent time of passing, doesn’t it?” Her fingers started absently pulling at the ends of her plait, her smile warm. “Do you remember the time we snuck out of our houses and went to our tree to see the falling stars?”

  Alex grinned and drew up a knee, lacing his fingers over it. “And we never saw a single one?”

  “But we laughed all night,” Poppy reminded him.

  That they had, and it was one of his favorite memories of Poppy and himself. He’d kissed her for the first time that night.

  But he wouldn’t bring that up.

  “How old were we?” he asked, though he knew full well.

  “I was fifteen,” Poppy said, laughing to herself. “Though I thought I was so much older than that.”

  Alex watched her, seeing that fifteen-year-old girl with energy and vitality, who laughed with her soul and smiled with the light of the sun. He’d adored Poppy at every age, and though she was altered now, every one of the girls she had ever been was still there.

  “You were,” he murmured, shaking his head. “You were so much older than your age at any given time. Why else would someone of my considerable years spend time with someone so young?”

  Poppy’s brow creased as she laughed in disbelief. “You are three years older, if that. You are not so ancient.”

  Alex sighed and looked back at the fire. “I feel ancient.”

  “Now?” she asked gently. “Or then?”

  “Both.” He stared at the flames as they rose and fell, devouring the logs within them with ease. “That’s the problem with overexposure to the evils of the world. It makes you old before your time and suspicious of everyone. You see things you have no wish or need to see, notice everything that should be hidden, and can’t forget anything. Ever. It’s… exhausting.”

  “Are you happy to be rid of it, then?” Poppy asked as the fire crackled loudly.

  He hesitated a long moment, considering what he could admit and must keep back, wondering what she already knew or suspected.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’m not sure who I am without it.”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered in response.

  He smiled very faintly at that. “You are the last person on earth who needs to be sorry where I am concerned.”

  She shifted in her chair, drawing his gaze back to her. “I’m sorry that you’re hurting,” she clarified, sitting forward. “I’m sorry that you’re torn about this, and I am sorry that I don’t understand.”

  “That’s not your fault, either,” he insisted.

  Poppy tilted her head in a way he knew all too well.

  She’d caught him somehow, and he was left scrambling, thinking back quickly on where his fault had been.

  “I know that,” she finally said. “It’s not my fault, but it doesn’t follow that it’s yours either.”

  Alex frowned as her fingers resumed their toying of the ends of her hair, which was strangely distracting for him. He suddenly wanted to feel her hair between his fingers, as he’d done so often before. But that was years ago, and now he had no grounds to do so, yet the inclination was still there.

  Strange that it hadn’t faded with time.

  “Alex…” Poppy said slowly.

  “What?” he breathed, his chest tightening in an oddly pleasant way.

  She exhaled slowly. “I haven’t been completely forthcoming with you.”

  His stomach plunged awkwardly.

  “No?” he asked with a rough swallow, fearing the admission to come.

  Her eyes turned serious and sober.

  “I know why you’re up tonight. I know why you’re up every night.”

  No…

  “I know you’re having nightmares,” she went on. “The walls of this cottage are thin, and your room is next to mine. They wake me up, Alex, so I cannot imagine what they do to you.”

  He stared at her in horror. He felt angry, miserable, and raging with guilt, hating the sight of her for what it truly meant.

  Her smile grew sad. “I never went in to you because I didn’t know how you would react to me. I didn’t know what you faced in the nightmares, so how could I know if my presence would help or hinder them? Then, I see you after the fact, the way you go throughout the day, the shadows you try to hide… Did you forg
et how well I know you, Alex?”

  He had forgotten. He wished he’d considered all of that, any of that, so he could have slept in the barn, on the fields, or even in the remnants of the lodge. Anywhere but here. He would have acted more convincingly, taken less strenuous tasks to avoid the appearance of his weakness…

  “I don’t want to make you tell me things that will pain you,” Poppy said, sighing quietly. “I don’t mean to plague you about this. But you see, I know enough to be afraid of what I don’t. I’ve seen your wounds and your scars. I’ve heard your screams.” Her voice broke and she swallowed hard. “I need you to fill the gaps.”

  Lord above, his guilt would know no bounds where she was concerned. He should never have come here, but once he had, he should have left the moment he was out of danger. This was no place for him, not with someone as innocent as to the true nature of the world as Poppy was. She didn’t need to know the cruel ugliness he had endured, nor that it still plagued him.

  Alex rose slowly, keeping his gaze on her. “I can’t, Poppy. Not because I don’t trust you, or because you don’t deserve it, but… I can’t.” He cleared his throat. “I think I’ll go walk outside after all, Poppy. Go back to bed. I’m sorry I disturbed you.”

  He could see her wilt before his eyes, and he wrenched his gaze away to avoid apologizing for many more things. He didn’t wait for her response; he pushed open the door and walked as quickly as he could out of doors, barefoot and without a coat. He didn’t care. He needed fresh air and a deep breath or seven.

  He needed to leave the cottage soon, and for good.

  For all their sakes.

  Chapter Twelve

  It was raining the next morning, which wasn’t much of a surprise. Being England, it tended to rain quite a bit, but it had been some time since they’d experienced a proper downpour which created the puddles and sludge that everyone seemed to dread.

  But the rain this time was a blessing in disguise.

  The cottage had a leak during the particularly heavy rains, no doubt due to its age and thatched roof. Stanton hadn’t managed to fix it since the last time, so Alex was taking it upon himself to fix it today. Why he was fixing it while the rain was currently going on was a mystery Poppy was too afraid to ask on, but if he wanted to behave so foolishly, she was more than delighted to let him.