Page 73 of His Stolen Duchess
“I tried,” he said. “I did all I could to bring boys home, soldiers no more than fourteen or fifteen. They should have been swimming in streams or climbing trees, but they were far from home, trying to kill other boys who should have been doing other things. All because we as humans want more. More land, more money, more power. We have an insatiable desire for what others have. We have a bloodlust.”
Georgina gently squeezed and then released his hand. “There are hundreds of families who stayed alive because of what you did over there. Not only the ones you saved, but all of us who would have had our lives shaken up or destroyed if the enemy had won. Defeat would have affected our children, and their children, and down and down through the bloodlines. Perhaps the difference you made was a ripple, but that ripple continues to grow and grow long after it was created. You brought back what you could.”
“I fear that I mainly brought back ghosts,” he admitted. “They sit with me at night, waiting for me to fall asleep, and they haunt me. They come to me in my dreams, figures I don’t know and have never met, and torment me. They are the ghosts of those I couldn’t save, and I don’t believe they will ever leave me. I’m not strong enough to fight them… I don’t know how.”
“If you can’t get rid of them, then you’ll have to learn to live with them.”
When Lysander looked at her again, the ghosts seemed to reside in his eyes. He looked hollow for a moment, a shell of himself in the darkness of night.
“How do I learn to live with them?” he asked.
The dynamic had shifted. In all other things, he was the one in control, and she gladly followed him. Now, he was looking to her for answers.
“I don’t know how you do that, but we can figure it out together. You have already helped me, so let me help you,” she said. “For now, just talking about it is enough. You haven’t ever spoken about this before, have you?”
“No one needs to hear about the horrors of war.” Lysander inhaled a deep breath and took her hand in his. “When people want to talk about war, then I know they haven’t actually experienced it. We carry around the past so others don’t have to.”
“And you have done that for so long. You don’t have to do it anymore.”
“Come here.” Lysander grasped her hand, lifting her from the chair, pulling her closer to the bed.
He was back in control again, and she followed his lead. He let go of her hand to lift the blankets, and she slipped into the bed with him. He stretched his arm out, beckoning her, and she nestled into the crook of his shoulder. Lysander curled his arm around her and gently drew her toward his sleep-warmed body.
Georgina placed her hand on his chest. She could feel his heart within, still beating quickly. She pushed her fingers through the tufts of hair, running her fingertips over his taut muscles, and discovered his scars.
She knew he had at least one, but her fingertips quickly found several more upon his chest and shoulder. She traced them with her forefinger. They felt a part of him, the scars of his past. They didn’t feel like what they were—wounds that had been viciously inflicted and were meant to end his life. They were physical manifestations of the ghosts that haunted him.
She traced them for a while, then lay her hand still over his heart. She nuzzled her head into his neck as the thought of sleep came to her. As they lay entwined together, it felt again that they were one instead of two separate people lying together.
“Thank you for coming to me tonight,” he whispered as she fell asleep.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ava welcomed Lysander and Georgina into her home.
“Please, come through and have something to drink. The others are already here, as is Uncle Francis. Oliver has found some wonderful musicians, and there will be music for us through the night, and the men would like to play cards later if that is favorable. Oliver also brought in some of the finest brandy from the Continent, cigars, too.”
“We appreciate the effort you have both put into welcoming us,” Lysander said.
It was unofficial and unspoken, but the dinner at Ava and Oliver’s house had been arranged to finally celebrate Georgina’s marriage and welcome Lysander into the family. Lysander didn’t need to have a celebration for any of that. Their marriage was an arranged one, and there was no need to celebrate it, but he assumed the husbands had a need for more family than they started with, and thought he needed the same.
It is better for me to be as alone as possible.
He and Georgina walked into the fine residence and were led to the drawing room. Georgina’s two other sisters, Juliana and Emily, along with the sisters’ three husbands, Vincent, Oliver, and Ambrose, were in the room, along with Uncle Francis.
“Some brandy, Your Grace?” Ava asked.
“Wonderful,” Lysander said.
“And I shall pour a sherry for you,” Ava said to Georgina. “Then you must come and converse with us. I’m afraid the men have been talking about boring things for a while now, and you will find it extremely dull.”
“Then I suppose I shall join the boring conversation,” Lysander noted.
“Oh, my!” Ava gasped. “No, I didn’t mean it quite like that, Your Grace. I was only jesting.”
“As is he,” Georgina added. “In his own way.”
“Oh yes, good,” Ava said. “I don’t mean to offend anyone.”
