Page 5 of Who Cries for the Lost

The three of them—Sebastian, Gibson, and Alexi Sauvage—were seated atop the low, ancient sandstone wall that edged one section of the garden she’d spent the last two years making. The colorful riot of lilacs, honeysuckle, roses, and marigolds around them was drenched with the morning’s clear light and abuzz with life; Sebastian could feel the sun warm on his back, breathe in the sweet scent of a gnarled old pink rose that bloomed nearby. But inside he felt cold, so cold. That dark, unforgettable night in the mountains of Portugal had altered him forever. And although he would find it difficult to articulate, he understood deep down within him that much of what he did now—his dedicated, unending quest to find justice for the innocent victims of murder—was in atonement for the events of that night. Or, rather, for the blood-soaked blur of days that followed it.

“I remember,” he said, his voice rough. Of course he remembered; he’d killed that French major with his own bare hands...

Alexi gave a quick nod, as if she knew. And perhaps she did. She said, “I always knew Rousseau and his men could be vicious. But with Jean dead, and after what they did to the nuns and orphans of Santa Iria, I couldn’t stay with them.” Something flared in her dark brown eyes. “I know you don’t believe me, but it’s true.”

Had he ever said such a thing to her? he wondered. In anger perhaps, although if so, he couldn’t remember it. He said, “So what did you do?”

“There was a village nearby, not far from the convent. Their doctor had been killed by Rousseau some months earlier for treating a wounded partisan. The people in the area needed help, and because of what Rousseau had done, I felt I owed them. So I stayed. I was still there the following summer when a British brigade came through.” She paused, her hands spasming into fists against the rough stones beside her. Reaching out, Gibson quietly rested one of his hands over hers.

Sebastian said, “Captain Sedgewick was with them?”

“Not initially, no. When they first came, the men camped in the ruins of the convent and left the village alone. But the convent’s wine cellar was still intact, and several nights after they arrived, they broke into it.”

Sebastian understood then what was coming. He knew only too well what a drunken brigade—or even a small band of soldiers—could do to a town full of defenseless civilians.

“I was returning from delivering a baby down in the valley when a group of four or five soldiers caught me.” She paused to suck in a deep, shaky breath. “Miles was out on patrol for Wellington and happened upon us by chance. He stopped them—killed them. All of them. But in the process he was badly wounded.” She glanced toward the dark, shadowy interior of the silent stone building beside them, where what was left of Miles Sedgewick still lay. “Those scars on his arm, chest, and neck all came from that night. The wound to his arm was particularly severe, and I told him it needed to come off, that I was worried about septicemia. But he wouldn’t let me take it—said he’d rather be dead. I thought he’d surely die within a week. He didn’t, but it was too dangerous to move him. So when the Army moved on, he was left in my care.”

She was silent for a moment, her eyes taking on a sad, distant look, as if she were gazing far, far away, to another time and place. “When he wanted to, Miles could be charming, so gay and full of laughter and an infectious kind of joy. We grew... quite close.”

In other words, you became lovers, thought Sebastian, although he didn’t say it. He watched her hand twist beneath Gibson’s so that she could entwine her fingers with his, and after a moment, she continued.

“It was about six weeks later that word came through that his father, the Marquis, was ill and in danger of dying, and that Wellington had decided to have him sent back to England to recuperate. When he heard, Miles asked me to go with him. He was healing, but he was still far from well and we knew the trip would be hard on him. He was afraid that if I wasn’t there, his wound would take a turn for the worse, and some British Army surgeon would insist on cutting the arm off.”

“You agreed?”

“Not initially. I remember I said to him, ‘And what will become of me, if I go with you and you die? I would be all alone in a strange land.’ ”

“And?”

“At first he laughed and said I wouldn’t let him die. But when I simply looked at him and said, ‘You might,’ he sobered and said he’d marry me. That way, as his wife, if anything were to happen to him, his family would take care of me. So I said yes.” She let out her breath in a soft huff. “Love can make us do foolish things.”

Sebastian had a hard time imagining this brutally pragmatic and self-contained woman as either lost in love or foolish. But all he said was, “You were married before you left Portugal?”

“Yes, by the father in the village.” For a moment, she paused again. “The voyage back to England was magical. I’d never been to sea before, and Miles was at his most gay and fun loving. But when we arrived in London, he didn’t take me directly to his family’s home. Instead, he rented rooms for me in Golden Square, using the name Miles Sauvage. He said that given his father’s failing health, he needed to break the news of our marriage to him gently—that the old Marquis had been hoping Miles would marry the daughter of a wealthy acquaintance, so it might take some time to bring him around.” Her lips curled into a sad, wry smile as she gave a faint shake of her head. “It was a lie, of course—although I didn’t realize it at first. But as the weeks passed and nothing happened, I began to question him, and he didn’t like it. That’s when I realized there was another side to the man I’d married, a side that was neither charming nor easygoing, but selfish and spoiled and ugly.”

Sebastian nodded. He knew that side of Miles Sedgewick only too well.

She stared out over the garden, watching a butterfly dance around a stand of hollyhocks; it was a moment before she continued. “It was almost a relief when he told me one day that he was being sent on a mission to Switzerland. I thought that when he came back, we could start over—that he’d finally tell his father and things would go back to being the way they’d been between us before, in the mountains of Portugal. But he’d only been gone a few weeks when one of his friends came to tell me he’d been killed.” She gave a low, humorless laugh. “I believed him. Why wouldn’t I? And I grieved—not for the man I’d caught glimpses of in London but for the one I’d fallen in love with in Portugal.”

“Who was the friend?” Sebastian asked quietly.

“Montgomery McPherson. You know him?”

“I know him.”

She nodded as if this didn’t surprise her. But then, the three of them had all been exploring officers—Sebastian, Miles, and Monty. Perhaps she knew that. She said, “It was less than two weeks later that I chanced to see him—Miles, I mean—from a distance. He was with a plump, fair-haired woman and two young children, and I heard one of the children call him Papa.”

“Did he see you?”

She shook her head. “I thought at first that I must be imagining it, that it couldn’t be him, that it must simply be someone who looked like Miles—perhaps even his older brother. But it wasn’t difficult to discover the truth—that the Marquis of Stamford’s younger son, Captain Sedgewick, was still very much alive and living with his wife, Eloisa, in Mount Street. He’d told me he was staying at his father’s town house, but it turned out his wife’s father had bought them a house when they married—four years before we even met.”

“Did you confront him?”

“Not then—not that first time when I saw him with his family—but two days later, once I knew for certain I was right. He was coming down the steps of his house when I stopped him, and he looked me straight in the eye and denied even knowing me—said, ‘My good woman, I don’t know who you think I am, but I fear you are sadly mistaken.’ He was so dismissive, so condescending, even faintly concerned—as if for my sanity—that for one mad moment I thought perhaps he was right, that perhaps I was somehow mistaken. But as he was turning away, I reached up to catch the edge of his cravat, and the scar from the neck wound I’d dressed myself was there. I wasn’t mistaken.”

“So what did you do?”

Her chin came up. “I told him that the Honorable Miles Sedgewick was obviously very much alive, but I agreed with him that my husband, Miles Sauvage, was dead. And then I just walked away.”

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