After a bit, Rex used the bloodied handkerchief to blow his nose. "Do you think she is coming back?"
"What did she tell you?" Lord Royce asked, hope tiptoeing through his heart.
"She said she would."
"And…?"
The boy understood the unspoken question. "And it was all muddy."
And that was why people lied.
Chapter Two
Twenty years later, Viscount Rexford was once more in his father's library, once more wounded, confused, and in despair.
Lord Royce wished with all his heart that he could hold the boy, kiss away his hurt, make everything better with the promise of a new horse. But his little boy was a soldier, and war was not something a father could make disappear. Rex's leg might heal, the scar on his cheek might fade, but those wounds to his soul, Lord Royce feared, were something Rex would carry for the rest of his life.
At least he had come home. Too many fathers' sons had not. Timmy Burdock would not bedevil the neighborhood ever again, and Daniel, the earl's nephew, was in London, by all reports drinking himself to death, trying to accomplish what the French had not. The three had joined up, for England and for the adventure, despite their families' anguish. Timmy had gone as a common foot soldier, but the earl had bought colors for his son and nephew when he could not convince them to stay safely in England. For that matter, they had been getting into too much trouble in Town, Rex's hidden talent causing whispers of cheating and bribery and unfair advantages. Where Rex went, Daniel had to follow, as usual.
No one was about to allow the only heir to an earldom to face the enemy, so Lord Royce used his remaining influence-and a shadowy connection at the War Office called the Aide-to have them assigned to a noncombat division. The Aide was one of a handful of people who knew about the family's truth-seeing, and he saw a great need for Rex's gift. With the viscount's unique talent and his cousin Daniel's intimidating size, the two had risen through the ranks, attached to the Intelligence Service. They had become known, and widely feared by both French and British troops, as the Inquisitors, Wellesley's most valued team of interrogators. Their methods were kept blessedly hushed, but they seldom failed to provide necessary, infallibly accurate information from captured prisoners, enabling the generals to plan their strategies and protect their own forces. Lauded by the commanders, the cousins were distrusted by their fellow officers. Spies were already considered less than honorable, and whispers of torture or Dr. Mesmer's new hypnotism or outright sorcery contributed to the stigma of the fact-gathering department. The Inquisitors never had to resort to barbarous tactics, of course, but the commanders found it expeditious to fan the rumors. The other young officers were glad to have the Inquisitors' findings, but they steered clear of the cousins. Captain Lord Rexford's piercing blue gaze saw into a man's very soul, and Lieutenant Daniel Stamfield's huge hands were always clenching, as if itching to choke the life out of his next unfortunate victim.
Then Daniel had to sell out when his father passed away. Rex was grievously wounded shortly afterward, perhaps because he did not have his stalwart companion defending his back. Daniel believed that, anyway, according to his mother, and was submerging his grief and guilt in a sea of Blue Ruin.
Now Rex was home, too, for what that was worth, and for all the earl saw of him. The young man had found his own way to cope with a crippled leg, an empty future, a world of nightmarish memories. Rex could not tramp across the countryside, but he could ride endlessly, and he could sail toward the horizon, not having to speak to anyone, not having to see their pity-or their fear. His only company was an enormous mongrel he'd rescued on his wanderings, an ungainly mastiff bitch who was utterly devoted to him. Rex named her Verity, because she alone among all females never lied to him. When he rode too far or too fast, Verity sprawled across the front door of Royce Hall, waiting. When he took his boat out on days fit for neither man nor beast, the big mastiff lay on the dock, waiting. She never ate while he was gone, never barked, and never let anyone touch her. Sometimes the earl would sit beside the dog, waiting too, worrying that he might still lose his only child-not to war, but to a reckless, nameless grief.
What could a father do? The earl pulled the blanket closer around his knees. He was not old, but he was not strong either, with a stubborn, debilitating cough that came every winter, and took longer to leave with each passing spring. More than that, he was a near recluse himself, seldom leaving the Hall, rarely entertaining company. He read his law books and occasionally contributed an article to a legal journal, but he was no longer one of the highest-ranking judges in the land, not since the scandal. Now Lord Royce was a rural justice of the peace, adjudicating disputes between his neighbors: straying cows, unpaid bills, verbal contracts gone awry. Rarely, when a prisoner of the assizes courts was desperate, Lord Royce might be called on to lend his legal expertise. Other times, if a case interested him, he might do some investigating on his own, when he had the energy to visit the prisons, to see for himself if the accused were truly guilty.
He had thought Rex would help him when the boy got home. Rescuing the innocent from a harsh justice system seemed a worthy crusade for a retired young warrior, especially one who could tell in an instant when the witnesses were lying, when the prosecutors were supplying false evidence. Rex had not been interested, preferring his bone-numbing, brooding excursions.
Such solitude was not good for the lad, Lord Royce knew. How could the earl not know, having spent almost half of his own life alone? Such loneliness sapped a man's strength and sometimes even made him wish for an end to the aching sorrow. Lord Royce brushed a bit of traitorous dampness from his cheek as he remembered the empty space in his own life, the empty rooms attached to his where his countess should have slept. He quickly replaced those memories, as always, with the image of the beautiful little blue-eyed sprite who used to laugh and giggle and bounce on his lap. It was too late for him, but the earl could not let his heir, his beloved boy, dwindle into a broken, bitter old man like himself. No, he would not, not while he had breath in his body.
The earl reached for the letter on the table by his side and smoothed out the creases. Maybe this piece of paper held the answer.
This could not be happening to her.
How many hundreds of prisoners had cried out the same thing? Two or ten thousand, Amanda did not care. This simply could not be happening, not to her. God have mercy, for she had not done anything wrong!
Well, she had, if one could call stupidity a crime. And she had, indeed, argued with Sir Frederick Hawley. Of course she had; he was a bounder of the blackest sort. Amanda and her stepfather had argued frequently since her mother's death five years ago. How else was Amanda to see that the servants were paid, that his own young son and daughter were properly cared for, that their house did not fall down around their ears? Sir Frederick was a miser, a mean, dirty-tempered, dirt-in-his-pores dastard. And he was dead.
He'd been all too alive that morning when they had fought over Amanda's latest suitor. The heir to a barony was going to call to ask for her hand in marriage-and Sir Frederick said he was going to refuse, again. It was not that Amanda loved Mr. Charles Ashway, but he was a pleasant gentleman who would have made a decent husband, and a husband was her only chance of escaping Sir Frederick's clutches. At twenty-two years of age, she had long since given up on girlish dreams of finding true love and was ready to settle on a kind, caring man. She respected and admired Mr. Ashway, who seemed to offer her respect and admiration in return, two things sadly lacking since Amanda's mother had wed Sir Frederick ten years ago.