and his servants, though Jack reckoned this one at Trestain Manor existed more by accident than design.
Charlie and Eleanor were discussing estate business now, in that domestic, familiar way Jack remembered his parents doing. His head was thumping. Serve him right for sleeping in the middle of the day, though when he slept so little at night, he had little option but to catnap when he could. While in the army, he used to pride himself on possessing a soldier’s ability to sleep whenever and whatever the circumstances. Standing, sitting, marching, he’d slept, and woken refreshed. No, not always refreshed, he thought ruefully, there had been times when he’d felt perpetually exhausted. But the fact remained, until he resigned his commission, sleep had never been a problem.
Was that true? Could his insomnia have been masked by his frenetic army career? He didn’t know. He did know that things had gone rapidly downhill after he left. The nightmare which had been sporadic now regularly invaded his dreams. He woke every morning feeling as if he’d been bludgeoned, his limbs weighted with stones. Precisely as he felt at the moment.
It was too much of an effort to move, so he settled back where he was, letting Charlie and Eleanor’s voices wash over him. Charlie was uncommonly happy with his estate and his wife and his family. Charlie thought that if Jack could settle down as he had, raise some sheep and cows and pigs, start his own nursery, that Jack would be every bit as contented as he was. Poor delusional Charlie. He meant well, but he had no idea, and his ignorance drove Jack to distraction, though he would never wish it otherwise. He envied Charlie. No, that was a lie. Charlie’s placid, uncomplicated life would drive Jack to an early grave, but he envied him the ability to love that placid, uncomplicated life.
Jack couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t wanted to be a soldier. He’d been an excellent soldier, and he’d been an exemplary officer. He’d loved being a military man, he’d taken such pride in doing his duty for king and country. There had been times when that duty had required him to see and do some terrible things. Unforgivable things. While he still wore his colours, he had managed to reconcile himself to that. Now, he no longer could. Now, he was being forced to question everything that he’d loved and all that he’d stood for. There were times when he felt as if he were being quite literally torn in two. Times when he raged at the injustice of what was happening to him, times when he was overwhelmed by guilt. There was no right and wrong any more, and his world, which had been one of clear-cut lines for so long, was now so blurred that he was careering around like a compass struggling to find true north. What the hell was happening to him?
Jack ran his fingers through his hair. He ought to have it cut. Just one of many things he ought to do, and had not the gumption to attempt. Every day he swore he would try to be normal. He would take an interest in mundane things like harvests and dressing for dinner and the weather and the king’s health. With increasing regularity, he failed. So many things important to Charlie and Eleanor seemed so trivial to him, and so trivial things tended to take on a disproportionate importance. Like that kiss.
Just a kiss, Celeste had said, though he could have sworn she was as unsettled as he had been by it. And then she’d made that comment about abstinence enhancing its intensity. Bloody stupid phrase. Presumptive. Though she had not been referring to him, as he’d assumed. She was no innocent, she claimed, and she certainly didn’t kiss like one. He’d never experienced a kiss like it. Was that due to enforced abstinence? It had come as a surprise, certainly. He’d assumed that aspect of his life, like sleeping soundly, was beyond him, at least for the time being.
Jack leant his head back against the hearth. It should be reassuring that it was not. Reassuring that he could still—what? Experience desire, lust? He swore. Most likely the woman was right, and it really had been just a kiss, blown out of all proportion by the circumstances. No mere kiss was that momentous. He wished he hadn’t run away now, like a raw recruit retreating under enemy fire. He wished he’d stayed and kissed her again, and proved to himself that it was not a one-off and that his body, unlike his mind, was not completely in limbo.
He closed his eyes and allowed himself to remember the taste of her and the feel of her and the smell of her. She was quite lovely. She was altogether ravishing. She would set any man’s blood on fire. He shouldn’t have kissed her. As it was, his self-control hung by a fragile thread. He was confused about many thing but the one thing he knew for certain was that maintaining his self-control was crucial. So he could not risk kissing her again. Definitely not picture her lips pressed to his, her hands...
‘I wonder how Mademoiselle Marmion is faring?’
Jack’s eyes flew open. The name leapt out at him, bringing the background buzz of conversation in the room below to the fore.
Charlie was speaking now. ‘I’m sure she fares perfectly well. She seemed to me an uncommonly confident woman for one of her years. Perhaps it comes from being French. And she is a successful artist too. No, my love, we need have no fear for Mademoiselle. Jack may be— He has developed something of a temper, but he would never behave with impropriety, I am certain of that.’
‘It is not only his temper, Charles. He has a look in his eyes sometimes that frightens me.’
‘The things he has experienced on the battlefield would frighten anyone.’
‘Yes, but—Charles, you must have noticed, there are times when one may address any number of remarks to him, and it is as if he were deaf or asleep. I thought he was simply being rude the first time, but—it is very odd.’
What was it they said about never overhearing good of oneself? Snooping and listening in to private conversations had been the tools of the trade of his carefully cultivated informants, but this was different. Jack cringed.
‘We can be sure of nothing with regard to your brother these days, Charles,’ Eleanor continued after a leaden silence. ‘He is so very changed.’
‘Indeed.’ Charlie’s voice was wooden, a sure sign that his stiff upper lip was being called into action. No doubt he was wringing his hands.
‘He rebuffed poor little Robert again yesterday. I have told the child time and again not to plague his uncle for war stories, but...’
‘He is only five years old, and his uncle is a hero to him. Indeed, Jack is a hero to us all, if only he could see it. If only he could talk to me, but I fear...’
Jack leapt to his feet. So much for his naive belief that he had been covering his tracks. It was mortifyingly clear that Charlie and Eleanor had merely been pretending not to notice his odd behaviour.
I’m sparing you, he wanted to roar at Charlie. I’m preserving all your sad, pathetic illusions about me, he wanted to tell him. He wanted to shake his brother into silence. He wanted to be sick, because he loved Charlie, and he even cared about Eleanor, dammit, because Eleanor loved Charlie too. He wished to hell, for Charlie’s sake, that he could sit down with Robert and tell him tales of derring-do. He wished that it was true, that he really was the hero mentioned by Wellington in despatches, but it was not the case. Heroes didn’t have stains on their soul.
Jack crept from the room. He might not be a hero but he had survived. He would continue to survive. To live, to be truly alive though, that was quite another matter. An aspiration for the future, perhaps. In the meantime, it was a question of enduring.
Next day, Celeste set to work in the walled garden, the morning sunshine sending fingers of light creeping along the western border. She knew from the landscaper’s plans which Jack had shown her that the oldest
