I would to God! And yet to God I would
That we had never met. To see you this
Is grief and wounds and poison to my blood
Oh, this is sacrilege and foul abuse
You were a thing for honor not vile use
– Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
Chapter Two
Medford Abbey, Kent
A Sharp Rap soon sounded on the door. Ludovic, Viscount DeVere glanced up from his periodical to the entrance of a liveried footman. “A message for you, my lord.”
The servant offered the wax-sealed missive on a silver salver. “It was delivered by a most…unusual…courier.” The footman gave a sniff of disdain.
“Indeed? What do you mean?” Ludovic asked in a bored drawl.
“’Tis a behemoth blackamoor, my lord.”
“Mustafa?” Ludovic threw down his periodical and snatched up the missive. “What the devil?”
“He awaits in the kitchen. Insufferable rude creature he be. Just stands all akimbo. Refuses even to speak.”
“The man cannot speak. He has no tongue. They took it when they castrated the poor devil.”
The footman’s eyes bulged. He involuntarily crossed his legs. Ludovic broke the seal and scanned the contents with a deepening frown.
Most honored Efendi,
It is with the greatest humility that I appeal to he who once safeguarded my life. It is with exceeding distress that I must entreat you once more, being much in need of a friend and protector.
Your most devoted and obedient servant,
Salime
Ludovic read the cryptic note once more. Salime in want of a protector? What a sticky situation that created. But given their shared history, he would never deny her aid. Beyond that, Salime had been instrumental in helping him to achieve his present state of connubial bliss. For that alone he owed her his undying gratitude.
“Tell him I shall be in touch with his mistress shortly…and that she should notify me at once should her circumstances become any more…distressed.”
“Aye, my lord.” The much-chagrinned footman departed.
Ludovic glowered after the departing servant. Salime had never been in want since coming to London. He wondered what could be behind her request, but then abandoned both letter and the dilemma the moment another surprise came bursting into his library.
“Ned?” Ludovic leaped up to greet his best friend. “What the devil has brought you all the way from Yorkshire to Kent?”
“I have most portentous news, DeVere,” Ned sputtered with excitement. “News I could hardly relay by messenger. So I came down myself.”
“What kind of news? Out with it, Chambers,” Ludovic commanded.
“Mayhap you should pour us a drink first.”
Ludovic lifted a sardonic brow. “A drink? Not so urgent after all?”
“’Tis fortification you’ll need for the shock you’re about to receive.”
“Shock? Me? You know I am not easily shocked, Ned.” Ludovic paused with his hand on the brandy decanter and a slight frown marring his face. “Come to think of it, I’m damned if I can recall a single occasion that has wrought from me such a profound reaction as shock.”
Ned flung himself into Ludovic’s favorite chair. “There’s a first for everything, DeVere. Now that drink?”
Ludovic sloshed amber liquid into two glasses, handing one to the would-be herald, who downed it in one draught. Ludovic quirked a brow.
“It was a devilish long ride,” Ned explained.
“All to deliver this shocking report of yours?” Ludovic perched a hip on the corner of his mahogany desk.
“Yes! It’s Lazarus all over again!”
“Lazarus? Am I to surmise that someone has been miraculously raised from the dead?”
“Actually, he might as well have been,” Ned declared. “I can hardly countenance it after all this time.”
“You are trying my patience, Ned.”
“It’s Simon. He’s returned.”
“Good God!” The glass slipped from Ludovic’s hand to shatter at his feet. “You can’t mean Sin is alive after all this time? He was pronounced killed in action six years ago.”
“I mean exactly that!” Ned exclaimed. “He is indeed alive and may even be in London as we speak. I have the news straight from Baron Singleton. His ship was expected to arrive several days ago.”
“Why am I only hearing of this now? I see the bloody Singleton regularly at Parliament.”
“Probably because the good baron doesn’t like you, DeVere. He believes you were an abominable influence on his son.”
“Then he would be right.” Ludovic smirked and then stared at the shattered glass at his feet.
“Looking a bit white there, my friend. This is known as shock.”
“Admittedly, I am incredulous. How can this be? Where the devil has he been?”
“Interned as a prisoner of war, I am told.”
“For six years? In all that time there were no exchanges?”
“Very few. The colonials refused to give up ours when they claimed their men were only released on the point of death. I daresay ’tis no exaggeration. I’ve seen a number of reports on the deplorable conditions of our prison hulks. It’s said that the Colonial prisoners set fire to the Whitby, choosing to go down in flames, rather than die of starvation and disease.” Ned shook his head. “What a hellish business war is.”
“But still, if Sin was a prisoner, he should have been released nigh on a year ago when the treaty was signed.”
“Apparently he was too ill to travel. Only made it as far as Bermuda before he was struck with the bloody flux or some such and required months of convalescence…poor sod.”
“We must go to him, Ned. At once.”
“He’ll not be the same man,” Ned voiced what they were both thinking.
“No.” Ludovic shook his head. “Likely never again.”
Oh who would live again to suffer loss?
Once in my youth I battled with my fate,
Grudging my days to death. I would have won
A place by violence beneath the sun…
But see, now time has struck me on the hip.
I cannot hate nor love. My senses are
Struck silent with the silence of my lip.
No courage kindles in my heart to dare,
No strength to do. The world’s last phantom’s slip
Out of my grasp, and naught is left but pain.
Love, life, vain strength – Oh who would live again?
– Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
Chapter Three
Wigmore Street, Westminster
Simon Singleton, former Captain of his Majesty’s 47th Foot, sat alone in a lofty chamber devoid of any furnishings, save a teeming bookcase and a rosewood writing desk. From behind said desk, he stared blankly at the equally blank piece of foolscap glaring back at him… taunting him with its emptiness. He wanted desperately to write. Penning verse was once not only his great joy, but his catharsis. For six horrific years his poet’s soul had been deprived of light and sustenance. But even now, months after his release, darkness remained.
With a ragged breath Simon picked up the quill in his uninjured left hand, and dipped it awkwardly into the inkwell, mumbling a curse when it nearly toppled over. With brows furrowed in concentration and hand poised inches from the sheet, he watched the splatters of ink drip one by one from the nib, marring the once-pristine whiteness of the paper with ugly and shapeless black blotches. Emotion-laden lava boiled inside him ready to spew forth in streams of volcanic force, but now that he most needed purging, his pen remained paralyzed. The words would not come out. Filled with frustration and self-disgust, Simon tunneled his claw-like crippled right hand through his disheveled hair and threw his quill onto the ink-smeared paper.
It was not enough.
Growling an ugly epithet that echoed off the walls of the barren chamber, he made a violent sweep of his arm, clearing the entire desk of ink pots and
parchment. Shaking in fury, he shoved his chair back, toppling it with a resounding crash. The table soon joined the chair.
He closed his eyes for long and labored moments, concentrating only on quelling his rage. Once he’d somewhat recovered from his impassioned outburst, Simon strode to the naked window to gaze at the peaceful life scene below.
The streets teemed with sedan chairs, hacks, and emblazoned carriages conveying their aristocratic burdens. He noted the working class pedestrians navigating past the burly street vendors hawking wares from their barrows. He watched two female servants carrying shopping baskets picking their way through the mud and muck, doing their best to shield themselves from the spattering refuse raining down from the upper-story windows.
With a sense of deep despair, Simon viewed the familiar hustle and bustle that had made up his former life—the life he still dreamt about between night terrors. He watched people of all stations with growing envy. All from the lowest chimney sweep to the duke in his crested carriage were just going about their daily business—living their normal lives.
Simon had once been as much a part of this thriving city as it had been part of him. But now, although physically freed, his fear continued to imprison him—both mind and body.
Terror ruled him, a tyrannous master, governing his every thought and action, crippling his mind as effectively as the shrapnel had mangled his right hand. Although he would have preferred death to this purgatory, he was denied that honor when he’d most craved it.
For six years, while others perished of dysentery and starvation, Simon had clung to the feeble thread of hope that one day he’d return home to reclaim the lost dreams of his youth, that he would somehow reassemble the fragments of his life. But now, he was himself a shattered shambles of a man. Feeling neither alive nor dead, he was doomed to this horrific half-existence, destined to be a mere observer. Life as he remembered it—the one he had desperately hoped to resume—was over.
He stepped back from his window with a dull ache in his chest.
His youthful exploits now seemed like someone else’s life. An epoch ended. A chapter closed. Eight hundred pounds and a familial connection to the commander in chief had bought a captaincy he neither wanted nor deserved. The experience had left many scars, but the invisible ones were the deepest.
“Simon!” His mother rapped upon the closed door. “I heard a crash. Are you all right?”
“It was nothing!” he bellowed. “For God’s sake, just leave me in peace!”
“Please, Simon, unlock the door,” she pleaded. “You have visitors.”
Vistors? Bloody hell!
“There is no one I wish to see!” he growled.
It was an untruth. In reality he wished for no one to see him. They would only stare in pity at his gaunt form, his mangled hand, and his dull and unfocused grey eyes. They would not understand. No one could comprehend his irrational fear and the bitter and heart-sundering loneliness of his self-imposed isolation.
“Open the bloody door, Sin!”
Sin? He froze. No one had called him that old sobriquet for years. He tentatively approached the portal, placing both hands on the smooth surface that separated him from the voice.
“DeVere?” he called out in a strangled tone.
“It is indeed the devil himself come to call.” His oldest friend chuckled. “Chambers is with me. Now will you open the door, or will you force us to remove it?”
Simon leaned his back against it, at war with his irrational fears. He squeezed his eyes shut and thumped his head. Once. Twice. Thrice against the door. “You don’t understand, DeVere. I can’t see anyone. I can’t be with anyone. Not yet.” He cupped his face in his hands with an anguished groan. Three more head thumps punctuated each word. “I.” Thud. “Just.” Thud. “Can’t.” Thud.
“That’s right, Sin, I don’t understand. So open the bloody door.” The voice was DeVere at his most autocratic, the DeVere Simon knew would never back down until his will prevailed.
Although his entire body shook with the effort, Simon turned the key in the lock, leaping back the moment the tumblers turned. He rapidly retreated several paces into the center of the room the moment DeVere and Ned burst into the chamber.
Simon watched their twin expressions of shock—two pairs of widening eyes beneath raised brows—as they took in their first sight of him in almost a decade. He knew what they saw, could see his own reflection in their eyes—the long, lank hair, the too-angular body. The prominent cheekbones that dominated a once boyishly handsome face, now haggard and heavily bearded. The shadows that continued to haunt his blue-grey eyes.
DeVere was first to recover, advancing with open arms. “My God, Sin! You cannot know how glad I am to see you alive. Words cannot express—”
In a surge of panic, Simon backed away, hands raised. “Please, DeVere! Don’t!”
His friend halted in his tracks, studying Simon with a puzzled expression.
Simon scrambled to explain his peculiar behavior…and failed. Averting his face, he drew a great lungful of air and blurted his humiliating secret. “I cannot stand to be touched.”
“What?” DeVere gaped.
“I-I can’t stomach physical contact…of any kind,” Simon said.
Entering behind DeVere, Ned’s gaze roamed the empty room. “Does that also include furniture?” he asked with a hint of irony.
Simon scrubbed his face. “The room was too cluttered. I had it all removed.” In truth it was the most spacious chamber in the house and had once even functioned as a provisional ballroom, but no matter how large the room, at times the walls still closed in.
“I have heard of an aversion to being confined,” Ned remarked, “yet you prefer to remain behind a closed door?”
“Yes. I know it makes little sense, but I cannot be with people.”
“How did you travel?” Ned finally asked.
“While on ship, I stayed above deck and as far away from others as I could. The rest of the time I endured it in a perpetual state of drunkenness—aided by opiates. Highly addictive, however, which explains the shocking sight that greets you.”
Ned looked like he would protest.
Simon raised his hand. “No need to deny it, Ned. I saw your expression and I see myself in the mirror every day. But now my dear, pious mother has taken it upon herself to restrict my attempts at self-medication. Hence, the cause of my ghastly appearance and worse temper.”
The heat of acute embarrassment washed over Simon as Ned’s gaze lingered on the overturned table and chair and the dozens of crumpled pages that littered the floor. Simon began righting the furniture. “I’ll do it!” he snarled at Ned when his friend moved to assist.
Ned and DeVere exchanged looks.
An awkward stillness followed.
“Sit. Please,” Simon insisted at last.
Ned took the chair, crossing a booted ankle over his knee. DeVere perched his hip on the corner of the table. Simon paced.
“Are you writing again, Sin?” DeVere’s gaze darted over the crumpled sheets of parchment and scattered writing implements.
“With this?” Simon displayed his mangled right hand with a bitter laugh.
“When did you return?” Ned broke the lengthening silence.
“Five days ago,” Simon answered.
It was a benign enough question but Ned’s next query invoked his defensive shield. “Have you not ventured out at all?”
“No. I told you already. I cannot be with people. Even now, my pulse races and my palms sweat even to be in the presence of my oldest and dearest friends. Paradoxically,” Simon laughed, sounding half-crazed to his own ears, “I can’t stand my own company either.”
“Perhaps you need some time in the country?” DeVere suggested. “I have a number of estates, any of which I’d eagerly place at your disposal.”
“And confirm the rumors that I’ve lost my mind?” Simon sneered. “No. I shan’t slink off to the country, though perhaps my parents might wish it. Out
of sight and out of mind… I’m an embarrassment to my father, you know, especially now that Stephen is gone. He was their pride and joy.”
“I was sorry to hear about your brother,” Ned said. “You have my sincere condolences.”
“’Twas two years ago… of lung fever, I am told,” Simon replied. “It’s a double tragedy as they lost one son only to gain a lunatic. He was the beloved heir, and I remain their despair,” Simon added with a twisted smile.
“You are too hard on yourself, Sin,” Ned said. “I have no clue what you’ve been through, but your survival demonstrates a remarkable strength of character.”
“There’s no question of it,” DeVere agreed, flipping open his jeweled snuff box. “You only need time and proper care to recuperate.”
“Care?” Simon spun on DeVere, his gaze narrowed. “You think I should be committed to Bedlam?”
“Don’t twist my meaning, Sin. I think nothing of the sort! I meant it’s only natural that you would require a period of adjustment.”
“I’ll never be fit for company again.”
DeVere made a frustrated sound. “Come now. Don’t be ridiculous. You just need to come out from under your dear mama’s meddlesome wings.”
“I couldn’t wish it more,” Sin confessed. “Her hovering is smothering me, and her intentions, while good, are—”
“Paving the road to Hell?” DeVere supplied.
“Yes,” Simon confessed with his first genuine smile.
“Then allow me to make arrangements for your liberty. I have a house in town that will suit you well. There is a skeleton staff, enough to supply your needs without obtrusiveness. Moreover, their loyalty and discretion are unquestionable after serving me during my epoch of debauchery.”
“You omitted unsurpasssed,” Ned said.
“Legendary,” Ludovic corrected him with a grin. “I won’t take no for an answer, Sin. You will repair to DeVere House at once. It’s the perfect place as it will meet your needs for both freedom and privacy. I’ll attend to preparations at once.”
Simon commenced pacing the room, pausing wistfully at the window, lost once more in self-absorption and pity. “Your efforts are wasted on me, my friends.”
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