“Is he mistaken, then?” She frowned.
He said nothing for a while as they strolled diagonally in the direction of the trees. Then he sighed.
“It is far too complicated an issue,” he said at last. “You need not concern yourself with any of it, Miss Edgeworth. And you need not fear that I will be here indefinitely to blight your happiness and Kit’s. I will be leaving within the next month or so, I believe. I will be taking a post with the Duke of Bewcastle.”
“As a steward?” she asked. “That upsets Kit, you know. He tells me you were not made for such a life, that you were— are—an artist. He loves you. Do you not realize that?”
He stopped walking and gazed at the grass ahead of them before turning his head and looking directly at her. Lauren was shockingly aware of how very handsome he had been, of how terribly disfigured he now was. But her dislike of him had not waned.
“And you think I do not love him?” he asked her.
“I think you cannot,” she said, “or you would offer him some comfort. Do you believe he has not suffered just because he does not carry around your wounds?”
He was angry then. Furiously so, judging by the sudden hardness of his eye and tensing of his jaw and flaring of his nostrils. But he brought himself under control before he spoke again.
“Yes, I believe he has suffered,” he said curtly. He turned to look back at the house. “This walk was not a good idea, Miss Edgeworth. Not unless we agree to talk about the weather. I like you. Very much indeed, though I realize the feeling is not mutual. You are kindness and patience itself with my grandmother. You are gracious and amiable with everyone else. You have an obvious affection for my brother. I wish you happiness—both of you. But I must leave. I doubt you will see much of me once I have gone. It will be best for everyone that way. Shall we return?”
But she had heard more than his words alone conveyed. She had heard another sad and lonely soul, too far withdrawn into himself for happiness. Kit, for all his deep misery, had found an audience in her two evenings ago and some comfort. In whom did Sydnam Butler confide his deepest griefs? Was there anyone? He seemed such a very solitary figure.
“There is one thing I am good at,” she told him, ignoring his gesture back in the direction of the house. “I am good at listening. Really listening, instead of hearing only what I want or expect to hear. Tell me what happened. Tell me your version of what happened.”
Kit had told her facts. She did not believe he had lied or tried in any way to mislead her. But sometimes even facts did not tell the complete story. Sometimes there were unconscious omissions or shadings that could change the whole perspective on an event. Get three people to tell what had happened on some tumultuous occasion—her wedding at Newbury, for example—and the chances were that one would get three similar but essentially different stories.
He looked steadily into her eyes for a few moments before turning to continue their stroll away from the house.
“Yes, I was the artist,” he said, “the dreamer, the little brother who was small for his age until he shot up to a gangly height at the age of fifteen. I wonder if Kit has ever noticed that I grew taller than he. Jerome was the solid one, the responsible one, the one who would inherit and be earl one day. He was confident, active, strong. Kit was the mischief-maker, the daredevil, the one at the center of any trouble, the one most often summoned to our father’s library. He was the charismatic one, the bright, laughing one. My boyhood hero. I adored him.”
Lauren said nothing. A largish cloud had just moved off the face of the sun, and there was a flood of welcome brightness and warmth.
“I was everyone’s favorite,” he said. “Sweet little Syd, the gentle dreamer. The one to be protected against all danger, all potential enemies, all punishments.” He chuckled suddenly, and Lauren realized that he had almost forgotten her presence. “One time when I took the boat out and did not secure it properly on my return so that it drifted off into the middle of the lake—even taking it out unsupervised was strictly forbidden, you must understand—Kit confessed to the misdemeanor and was caned. Then after I had heard about it and insisted upon telling the truth and was feeling rather proud of my own stinging rear, Kit got caned again for lying. They both did it—Jerome and Kit. They were forever protecting me. But I was a dreamer, you see, not a weakling.”
“They were overprotective?” Lauren asked.
“Yes.” They had reached the little stream that bubbled over its uneven stony bed on its way to join the river. They turned to walk beside it. “Because they loved me, of course. Love can be an infernal nuisance, Miss Edgeworth. Did you know that?”
It was a rhetorical question. She did not attempt to answer it.
“I wanted so desperately to be like Kit,” he said. “Self-knowledge is far more slowly learned than any of one’s other lessons. Indeed, some people never come close to learning it, and perhaps none of us fully succeeds. I suppose the boat episode must have been an attempt on my part to be as bold as he. My insistence upon becoming a military officer was another. It was utterly foolish. I was not, of course, cut out for such a life. But I had something to prove. To Kit and my family. Most of all to myself.”
“And it ended badly,” Lauren said. “I am very sorry about that. But it was not really Kit’s fault, was it? He did not insist that you purchase a commission. He actively tried to prevent you from joining him on that disastrous spying mission. And his promise to protect you was unrealistic.”
“Of course it was not his fault,” he said fiercely.
Lauren looked curiously at his perfect left profile. “Why then,” she asked him, “do you refuse to forgive him? There is not even anything to forgive, is there? He made the right decision. Didn’t he?”
He looked angry again. They walked onward while Lauren listened to the brook and looked across it to the path of the wilderness walk, just visible among the trees opposite.
“I owed obedience to officers of superior rank,” he said at last. “At that time I was a lieutenant while Kit was a major, two ranks above me. He was my superior. More than that, on that particular mission he was my commanding officer. Had he ordered me to stay and be captured, I would have obeyed him without question. He did not so order. I volunteered. Did he tell you that?”
“No,” she said after a brief, silent moment. “He did tell me that you were the one to spot the possibility of escape for one of you.”
“He never ordered me to do it,” Sydnam said. “I volunteered. He was horribly silent, wasting precious moments after I had suggested it, knowing very well as a loyal officer himself that there was no alternative. But he could not bring himself to give the order. I volunteered again. I insisted. And then I hugged him and I ordered him—a superior officer—to get out of there. I chose to stay. Even though he would have ordered me to do so eventually—because duty must come before a brother, you will understand— I would not burden him with having to do it. I volunteered.”
“Then why . . .” Lauren frowned. “Why?”
“Kit will have told you that I was tortured,” he said. “I will not horrify you with any of the details, Miss Edgeworth. I hope he has not. I will say only this. For days and days on end death seemed the most attractive, desirable gift ever dangled before my eyes. I could have grasped that gift at any moment for the price of a little information. I did not do so because I was an officer, because it was my duty to keep silent. I did not break because I was capable of not breaking. I surprised even myself, because hell could not possibly be worse than— Pardon me. Eventually I knew—beyond a certain point I knew that I would have the strength of will to die the hard way. I knew it and a part of me exulted in the knowledge. I was so very proud of myself.” He laughed softly. “And then Kit and a gang of partisans rescued me.”