He brought his booted foot down hard on the floor, the force of the blow smashing a china plate as it fell from the mantel. He gazed at the fragments. They were as jagged as the pieces of his life. His lack of ability to flirt with Lucy, or even chat about mundane topics like the weather, drove him to distraction.
He grasped his head in his hands, willing his temper to stay controlled. No one understood what he wanted. No one had bothered to ask before.
No one, that was, but Lucy. She respected his privacy, acknowledged his right not to get well. And that spoke volumes about her character.
The front door banged open. “Rowland? Are you here?” Macready’s voice, hale and hearty despite his many wounds, echoed throughout the little flat.
Rowland grunted. Macready must be back from taking the waters.
“So, how was the meeting?” Macready limped in, discarding his jacket on a nearby leather chair. “You look like you are having a bit of a study. If your forehead had any more lines, you could compose music upon it.”
“Funny,” Rowland replied, keeping his tone sarcastic. He didn’t want to share everything about Lucy yet. Certainly not her beauty or her sparkling character. Macready, with his Black Irish looks and his gift with words, might find her beguiling. He could charm her in ways that Rowland lacked—until he regained his power of speech.
“I met Cantrill in the Pump Room. He mentioned that a certain Miss Williams read to you today and that you squired her back to her employer’s home in the Crescent,” Macready yammered on. He sank into a worn velvet chair, eyeing Rowland closely. Too closely. “He even said you spoke to the lady.”
“Nothing much.” He kept his face turned toward the wall. If Macready saw how deeply he was flushing, he’d never hear the end of it.
“But think of it, man! You haven’t spoken a word to anyone besides myself and Cantrill since La Sainte Haye. This is an amazing accomplishment. You are on the road to recovery. I think this Miss Williams is excellent medicine, you know.”
“She’s not.” She was much more than a pretty face or a pleasing diversion. Macready made it sound as though she had worked her feminine wiles on him and gotten her way. What transpired was much more profound and deeply shaking than that. But trying to say that aloud—why, it would sound beyond ridiculous. So he merely settled for shrugging his shoulders.
“You know, I think you’ve been much too hard on yourself, Rowland. Think of it. Most of us were far too young to be in the military. I was twenty. How old were you? Eighteen? We were green as grass and broke formation. That’s how the Frenchies were able to get the best of us.” Macready paused, rubbing his battered arm. “Hiding in the rye as we did, well, that was simple survival. We had almost no chance against the cavalry.”
Well, they had hidden. That much was true. But while Macready lay delirious from dreadful wounds, Rowland had been awake and fully alert when he played dead. Like a coward. He had feigned death to the point that the peasants who came to collect them after battle thought he had died. And he didn’t cry out for help but remained mute even as his body was loaded onto a cart bound for Brussels.
The shame of his deception burned strong, deeper perhaps than any physical wound he could have sustained at Waterloo. And there was nothing he could do to right the wrong. His inability to speak seemed as though no more than justice. There was, after all, nothing he could say to defend or excuse the cowardice he had shown. And if he regained the power of speech, would he ever find a way to express his disgust with himself? His profound disappointment at how little he had done to save his fellow men?
The silence between them stretched out, punctuated by the ticking clock on the mantel. At length, Macready cleared his throat. “That’s why I asked you to come to Bath, you know. You needed to recuperate as much as I did. And Cantrill, he’s looking out for your welfare, too. I think that this Miss Williams shall probably play a significant role in your healing.”
Macready knew everything. He knew about Mrs. Rowland’s tears and recriminations. He knew about the doctor in Essex who had told James Rowland that fear had tied his tongue. He knew about the shame and the anger and the horror of the battlefield. And yet, Macready sought only to offer help. Never once had he blamed James for his injuries. But he should.
James struggled painfully with his voice for a few moments. It seemed he couldn’t force the words over his tongue. “I—I—I...” He trailed off, and inhaling deeply, he began again. “I—I am s-sorry.”
“Whatever for, old man? We were all of us terrified. We did what we could under the circumstances.” Macready rubbed his hands together briskly. “How about some tea? I could do with a bit, myself. Not to sound flippant, but that Bath water tastes like rotten eggs. And, uh—” Macready nodded his head at the heap of broken china on the floor “—I’ll bring a whiskbroom so you can tidy up.”
Macready heaved himself up from the chair and made his way to the small kitchen. The rattle and clank of the kettle and dishes signaled that he was readying the tea and had no more wish to converse about the past than James.
James rubbed a weary hand over his brow. Of course he didn’t want to think about it. No one wanted to examine the unpleasant or foolish side of himself. But all the same, James had a driving curiosity to know the truth. What kind of fellow was he after all? There was a saying that the battlefield brought out what was genuine in a man. If so, then he had failed the test miserably. Sure, he was young. But then, they all were. What made a man suffer nobly, like Macready? And what made a man hide and cower with fear as he had? Where was the defect in his character? Would that he could root it out and tear it away, like attacking weeds in an overgrown garden.
He wasn’t sure he deserved the friendship of his fellow veterans, like Macready. That’s what made attending those veterans’ group meetings so difficult. Those men had sustained real injuries while defending home and country. Many men had given their lives, leaving wives and children behind. He couldn’t even look the widows in the eye, so riddled with shame was he. Their husbands had paid the ultimate sacrifice while he lay silent in the rye at La Sainte Haye.
If he wasn’t sure he deserved the friendship of those brave men, then he felt doubly undeserving of Miss Williams’s attention. She seemed to care about others quite a bit, judging from her conversation with Cantrill. Every mention of her charges or Sophie brought a merry twinkle to her eyes. She would never sit back and allow others to suffer in her place. Someone like her would recoil in horror at his cowardice. Not that he had a chance with her anyway, poor and mute as he was. It was just that, in general, a friendship with someone like her could be nice. It took the rough edges off of life.
How could he come to deserve friendship again? Perhaps he could begin by confronting his shame and his cowardice first. These twin emotions had robbed him for two years now, leaving him bereft of speech. Only by ridding himself of them could he regain what he lost.
It was going to be a difficult journey. But, like the soldier he should have been, he could take it battle by battle. He would regain his power to speak. He would find a way to support his mother and sister. And in doing so, he would become a man. Not, perhaps, the man he should have been had he not been such a quitter on the field of battle. But, perhaps, the man he was meant to be.
He sighed.
Would he ever become the kind of man who might, one day, deserve a pretty girl like Lucy Williams sitting by his side?
He certainly had his work cut out for him.
Chapter Four
Lucy perused the bookshelves before her, tapping her fingers across the spines of the leather-bound volumes. Lord Bradbury possessed an excellent library that he used but infrequently. Surely he wouldn’t mind if she looked among them for something that could help her to cure the ensign.
She moved along the