The Proposal

The arm of the seat was digging into Gwen’s back despite the cushion. She squirmed into a different position, and Lord Trentham jumped to his feet to plump up the cushion and reposition it behind her.

“Are you ready to go back in?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “Not unless you are.”

He did not answer her. He went to sit back down on the stone pedestal.

Why had he become a virtual recluse? Everything in his life would lead one to expect him to be just the opposite.

“Was it during the Forlorn Hope you led that you sustained the injuries that brought you here?” she asked.

His gaze was so burning and so steady that she almost leaned sideways against the back of the seat in order to put more distance between them. He did not talk about that attack, he had told her yesterday— ever.

And why did she want to know? She was not usually inquisitive to the point of intrusiveness.

“I sustained not a scratch during that Forlorn Hope,” he said. “Nor in any other battle I fought. If you were to examine me from head to toe, you would never guess that I had been a soldier for almost ten years. Or you would guess that I was the sort of officer who cowered in a tent and gave orders without ever coming out to risk intercepting an errant bullet.”

His life had been as charmed as the Duke of Wellington’s, then. It was said that Wellington had often ridden recklessly within range of enemy guns despite all the efforts of his aides to keep him out of harm’s way.

“Then why—” Gwen began.

“—was I here?” he said, interrupting her. “Oh, I had wounds right enough, Lady Muir. They were just not visible ones. I went out of my head. Which is not actually an accurate description of my particular form of madness, for if I had been out of my head, all would have been well. The fact that I was still in it was the problem. I could not get out. I wanted to kill everyone around me, especially those who were most kind to me. I hated everyone, most of all myself. I wanted to kill myself. I believe I started to talk in nothing lower than a bellow, and every second or third word was foul even by the standards of a soldier’s vocabulary. It infuriated me that I soon ran out of words strong enough to get the hate out of me.”

He looked down at the ground between his feet again. Gwen could see only the top of his head.

“They sent me home in a straitjacket,” he said. “If there is anything more calculated to increase fury above the boiling point, I do not know what it is, and I do not want to know. They did not want to send me to Bedlam, though, even if that was where they thought I belonged. They were too embarrassed since I was sort of famous and had just been promoted and feted and given my title by the king—or by the prince regent, actually, since the king was himself mad. Ironical, that. I would not go home to my father. Someone knew the Duke of Stanbrook and what he was doing here for a few other officers. And he met me and brought me here—without the straitjacket. He took the risk. I don’t think I ever would have killed anyone else but myself, but he was not to know that. He asked me not to kill myself—asked, not told. His wife had done that, he told me, and it was in a sense the ultimate act of selfishness since it left behind untold and endless suffering for those who had witnessed it and been unable to do anything to prevent it. And so I remained alive. It was the least I could do to atone.”

“To atone for what?” she asked softly. For some reason she had the blanket he had spread over her legs bunched against her bosom, held there with both hands.

He looked up with blank eyes, as though he had forgotten that she was there. Then awareness returned.

“I had killed close to three hundred men,” he said. “Three hundred of my own men.”

“Killed?” she asked.

“Killed, got killed,” he said. “It is all the same. I was responsible for their deaths.”

“Tell me,” she said, her voice still soft.

He returned his eyes to the ground. She heard him inhale deeply and exhale slowly.

“It is not for a woman’s ears,” he said. But he continued anyway. “I led my men up an almost sheer slope into the guns. It was certain death. We got stopped in our tracks when we were halfway up. Half of us were dead, the other half discouraged. Success seemed impossible. My lieutenant wanted me to give the order to retreat. No one would ever blame us. Going on was pointless suicide. But it was what we had all volunteered for, and I was determined to go on and die in the attempt rather than return defeated. I gave the order to advance and did not look back to see if anyone followed me. And we succeeded. Although there were almost none of us left, we had made the breach that enabled the rest of the forces to swarm in past us. Of the eighteen survivors, I was the only one unhurt. And a few more died afterward. But I did not care. I had accepted the mission and I had completed it successfully. I was showered with accolades and rewards. Only me. Oh, and my lieutenant won his captaincy. All the other men, living and dead, meant nothing. They were cannon fodder. Unimportant in life, instantly forgotten in death. I did not care. I was on a cloud of glory.”

He scuffed the gravel he had smoothed out earlier.

“And why should I not be?” he asked. “It was a Forlorn Hope. All those men were volunteers. All of them expected to die. I did myself, because I led from the front.”

Gwen licked her lips. She did not know what to say.

“Two days before I went out of my head,” he said, looking up at her with eyes that were quite frighteningly bleak, “I went to see two of the men. One was my lieutenant, newly promoted. He had massive internal injuries and was not expected to live. He had great difficulty breathing. He managed nevertheless to collect enough phlegm in his mouth to spit at me. The other had had both legs amputated and was unquestionably going to die though he was taking his time about it. I knew it. He knew it. He grasped my hand and … kissed it. He thanked me for thinking of him and coming to see him. He said it made him a proud man. He said he would die a happy man. And other daft things like that. I wanted to bend down and kiss his forehead, but I was afraid of what the other people milling about would think or say to one another afterward. I merely squeezed his hand instead and told him I would be back next day. I did go, but he had died half an hour before I arrived.”

He gazed at Gwen.

“And now you know my shame,” he said. “I went from great hero to gibbering idiot within a month. Are your questions all answered?”

There was a hardness in his eyes, a harshness in his voice.

Gwen swallowed.

“Feeling guilt when one has clearly done wrong,” she said, “is natural and even desirable. One can perhaps say or do something to put right the wrong. Feeling guilt when there has been no clear wrong is altogether more poisonous. And of course, Lord Trentham, you did not do wrong. You did right. There is no use in my laboring that point, however, is there? Countless other people must have told you the same thing. Your friends here must have said it. It does not help, though, does it?”

His eyes searched hers, and she lowered them while she busied her hands with restoring order to the blanket.

“I feel for you,” she said. “But your breakdown was shameful only when looked at from the perspective of tough, ruthless masculinity. One does not expect a military commander to care for the men under him. The fact that you did care—that you do care—makes you far more admirable in my eyes.”

“Not many battles would be won, Lady Muir,” he said, “if commanders placed the safety and well-being of their men ahead of victory over the enemy.”

“No,” she agreed. “I suppose not. But you did not do that, did you? You did your duty. Only afterward did you allow yourself to grieve.”

“You would turn my very cowardice into heroism,” he said.

“Cowardice?” she said. “Hardly that. How many commanders lead their men to certain death from the front? And then visit their horribly wounded men, especially those who will surely die? And even those who hate and