Part 14 (2/2)

She stood in the middle of the room, clearly unaware of how the firelight licked at her hair, making her appear almost an apparition rather than flesh and blood. The brandy had made no impact on him, but the sight of her made him feel nearly drunk with emotions he'd never experienced in his lifetime.

Had he even been alive until she'd come into his life? He couldn't be sure. He'd gone through the motions, yes. The good son, the good friend, the good soldier. Sane, conventional, reliable. Honorable. He'd done what was expected of him, always.

But now he wanted something for himself. And what he wanted was to hold Lydia Daughtry close against him for the rest of his days.

”Flynn left the village,” he heard himself say as Lydia sat herself in one of the two shabby leather chairs flanking the fireplace. ”I went searching for him, which he must have expected, so he left.”

”That was probably wise of him. You looked ready to take a horsewhip to him, the way those men had planned to punish Justin. Violence solves nothing, Tanner. I thought we already agreed on that the day we discussed war.”

Tanner gestured to the vacant chair and Lydia nodded her agreement, so he sat down. ”I wasn't contemplating a war. It was more of an annihilation. The man was wrong. He didn't even know Fitz.”

”Yes, I know. There were so many Irish in the Fourth Foot. Fitzgerald, Fitzpatrick, Fitzsimmons, Fitzhugh. On and on. I imagine at least half of them were addressed as Fitz by their a.s.sociates. Captain Flynn was mistaken.”

It's more likely he was mistaken that he was Captain Flynn, Tanner thought, but did not say. ”Still, it couldn't have been easy for you, hearing what he said.”

Lydia fingered the long white ribbons that had been tied at her neck and fell to her lap. ”For a moment, no, it wasn't. But then I was much more upset to think that you might go outside with the Captain. You...you could have been injured. And for nothing. If there is one thing I know, Tanner, it is that Fitz loved me.”

Tanner tried not to smile. ”You were worried about me? That's why you intervened?”

He could see her cheeks flus.h.i.+ng a becoming pink. ”Now you're going to tell me I was being silly. But you do still have that bandage on your cheek, and if the wound were to open it could prove very painful.”

”True,” Tanner pointed out, ”but Justin had already volunteered to beat the man into a jelly for me, remember?”

”Yes, I heard him. The two of you were all but strutting about like roosters in a barnyard, that's what you were doing. And there was Captain Flynn with only the one eye, and only one man against two. And all because of me. There was no way for it all to end well, Tanner. I didn't want to interfere, but you left me no choice.”

Tanner was trying to understand. ”So you are angry with me?”

She shook her head, sighing. ”No. I'm angry with me, because if Captain Flynn had taken a single step in your direction I quite fear I was prepared to conk him on the head with one of Justin's silly silver dishes.”

”Really,” Tanner said, doing his best not to throw back his head and laugh out loud. ”Pardon me, but didn't you say that only men are foolish enough to fight wars for the glory of someone else, and that women only fight to take care of their-”

He stopped, almost physically stunned as the meaning of her near-action became clear to him, and finished silently: take care of their own.

”Fitz gave me to you, or you to me-sometimes I'm not sure anymore,” she said quietly, her voice so low he had to lean forward to be sure he heard her. ”That letter you brought to us? The last one he'd written to me? He planned never to post it, not if he lived through the battle. He knew if he...if he died, that you would bring it to me.”

She raised her head, her expressive blue eyes swimming in tears. ”He imagined he might die. But not you, he seemed sure you'd survive. Don't you find that strange?”

Now this was a conversation he'd never really planned on having with her. ”We all of us make arrangements with another soldier, a friend, to take our belongings home if something should happen. I'd given Fitz my own Will, just as he'd given me his. But, yes, Lydia, he did think he was going to die when the battle finally came. He said he'd had a premonition or some such thing. I teased him that he was just being Irish, and maudlin, but he'd come to believe he'd never return to England, that he could already feel a goose walking across his grave. There was no talking him out of it.”

She bit her bottom lip, and a single tear ran down her cheek. ”Tell me, please. Tell me all that he said.”

”You don't need to hear this, Lydia.”

”Oh, Tanner, but I do. Please.”

Would he be exposing Fitz's darkest fears to her for no reason save curiosity? How could she understand the workings of a mind pa.s.sing time, waiting, waiting for the beat of the drums, the blare of the trumpets, the inevitable call to battle? A man's mind can play terrible tricks in the weeks and days and hours before he goes off to kill or be killed. G.o.d, one of their very best generals had only left home for Brussels after lying himself down in a fresh-dug grave, telling his servant, ”Why, I think this will do for me.” Poor Picton, he'd survived Quatre Bras only to have his brains blown out on the fields at Waterloo.

And yet, certain he would die, he'd answered Wellington's call, just as Fitz had done. Bravery or foolishness? Dedication or insanity? Was it fair to judge such things from a distance?

”All right,” Tanner agreed at last. ”Fitz told me he'd never thought about dying, all those years he and Rafe served together. Not seriously, anyway. That was obvious to anyone who ever saw him in a fight. Fitz would have drawn his sword and charged the Devil himself across a battlefield. It was only when he had so much to lose that the reality of his own mortality began to terrify him. You, Lydia. You were everything to him.”

He was silent for a few moments, trying to find the right words, when there were no right words. ”He never thought he could be so blessed, and was convinced the Fates would find a way to deny him such happiness.”

Lydia nodded her head, wiped at her damp cheeks. ”So it is what I thought. It's...it's almost as if he'd still be alive if he had never met me.”

”Jesus,” Tanner said softly, immediately realizing the importance of her words. ”How long have you lived with the idea that you caused his death?”

She turned her head toward the fireplace, as if suddenly interested in the flames. She put a hand to her mouth and sat quietly for long moments, composing herself, while Tanner held his breath.

”I don't know,” she said at last, turning to face him once more. ”Months, I suppose. Then I decided it would be easier to be angry with him for going off to fight Bonaparte when he thought he wouldn't come back. But...but it still hurt.” She wiped at her cheeks again with trembling hands, her voice breaking, ”It still hurt so much. Love...love brings so much responsibility with it. I don't know how anyone survives it...”

When she lapsed into silence once more, Tanner knew he was left with no choice but to go to her, gather her up in his arms, and take her with him into his chair. She needed to be held. He needed to hold her. She offered no protest. Her arms went up and around him, her head burrowed into his shoulder.

His desire for her was always just beneath the surface, but his concern for her, his love for her, overpowered any thoughts other than wanting to comfort her in her pain.

Her body was warm and pliant against him, showing him how she trusted him, how she relied upon him, felt secure with him. But did he have any real answers for her?

No, he didn't. No mortal could.

”I lost so many of my dearest friends at Waterloo, men I loved as brothers. We all did. Rafe, Justin, everyone. It was h.e.l.l on earth to be left behind, with so many others gone, all with no rhyme, no reason. But it gets better, Lydia,” he whispered against her hair. ”With every day that pa.s.ses, it gets better. Slowly, we learn to live again. We forget the bad and remember the good. It's the only way to truly honor the love we knew and find the courage to open our hearts again.”

”I want to do that,” she said, and he had to hold his breath to hear her, as her whisper was so tentative and quiet. ”But then, at the ball, and again tonight...when I thought you might be hurt, all I could do was feel the chance slipping away again. I don't know, Tanner. I don't know if I can dare to risk opening my heart again. That makes me a coward, doesn't it?”

Tanner closed his eyes, feeling tears burning in them. Did she realize what she'd just admitted?

His joy at hearing that she might love him, however, was nearly overshadowed by the realization of what that love meant.

Loving was all he'd thought of; loving Lydia. Being loved in return? That held responsibilities he'd never considered.

He kissed her hair. ”I would never hurt you.”

”You say that. You've said it before, and I know you mean it. But people can't help hurting each other, not if that person is...important to the other person.”

They were silent for some moments, a burnt log splitting and dropping into the fire the only sound in the room. He'd taken her hand in his, lightly rubbing his thumb over her soft skin, and she kept her head against his shoulder.

There was no pa.s.sion. Just two people, comfortable together. Safe, together. Maybe even afraid...but together. And that was all right. He was willing to move at her pace, follow her lead. It was enough for now that he was holding her, trying to tell her, tell himself, that she was safe in his arms.

Tanner squeezed her fingers.

”You really would have conked Flynn on the head if he'd made a move toward me?”

”Now you're laughing at me.”

”No. Well, not exactly. Mostly, I'm picturing the look of dismay on Justin's face if you'd dented one of his fine silver lids on Flynn's head.”

Lydia's shoulders shook a time or two, and then she pushed herself slightly away, braced her hands on his shoulders, and smiled into his face. ”He would have been aghast, wouldn't he?”

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