Page 42 of The Cornish Inheritance

She nodded.

“My grandfather bought me a commission after I left Harrow. I began as an ensign but soon rose to lieutenant, captain and then to major in the 18th Hussars. We were sent to Europe to fight Boney. Not the whole time I was in, mind. I had time back in England too. Later on, I saw action in Spain and then in Southern France.” He held up his right hand, the lack of fingers evident even in the poor light. “I lost these at Corunna, five years since. That coincided with a period back in England so I was able to convalesce. They offered me the opportunity to relinquish my commission, hampered as I was without these fingers, and being right-handed. I refused.”

What had driven him to refuse? Out of instinct, Caroline reached out and took his hand in hers, much as she might have done had he been Yves, the stumps of his missing fingers against her palm. “Were they shot off?”

“They were.” He made no attempt to free his hand, his remaining fingers curling around hers as though she’d created a link that drew them together in their common suffering.

“Go on.”

He cleared his throat. “We were dispatched back to Portugal some eighteen months ago. We landed in Lisbon and battled our way through Northern Spain—I fought at Morales, Vitoria, Sorauren, then across the Pyrenees and into France. My men fought at Nive and Orthez, then on to Toulouse, and that was my downfall.” His fingers tightened on hers. “A Frenchman’s saber. We were fighting hand to hand, saber to saber.” He stopped and she heard him catch his breath. Was he remembering the blow, the slicing open of his face? The pain, which must have been terrible?

“I stumbled. He was quick. But it was the last thing he did. Even as his saber did its damage, mine was running him through.” He fell silent again.

She didn’t push him. What must it have been like to have your face ripped open like that from forehead to chin? He was lucky to have kept his eye. And what had happened after he’d killed his man? How long had he waited to see a doctor? It didn’t bear thinking of.

“The military doctors in our field hospital tried,” he said, almost as though he’d read her mind. “But they had little to work with. I’m lucky not to be worse scarred… or dead from an infection. They did their best.” The bitterness was back in his voice.

No wonder his mouth possessed that discontented downward curve. Life had dealt him a terrible blow. Had he ever wished he was dead instead of maimed like this? Better to have lost an arm, perhaps, or even a leg, than to have had his face, that must once have been so handsome, mutilated in this way.

“You’re wondering how I can bear to live with it,” he said, his voice low.

She shook her head. “Not about how you live with it now. I was wondering how you coped in the weeks after it happened. Here and now, I can see for myself how you cope. You turn your head away to stop people seeing. You stand in corners in the shadows, play cards when you fear you’ll frighten the ladies, or they will stare, and lurk outside like tonight, keeping the world at bay.” How to tell him he didn’t need to? That he should wear his scar with pride as it showed how he’d fought for Britain against that Corsican despot and helped procure the hard-won victory. Words her father would have echoed.

He stayed silent.

She reached out with her other hand and covered his so she was clasping his mutilated hand between her two. “You have no need to hide, Nathaniel. You are a hero, like all the other soldiers back from France.”

He snatched his hand from hers as though she’d stung him. “Never call me that. I’m no hero. None of us are.” His voice rose. “I’ve seen atrocities that would make your blood run cold in your veins, atrocities I’ve taken part in. I’ve seen women and children dead in the streets, and boy soldiers disemboweled, dying in agony. We are not heroes who have stood for that, so never call us by that name.”

Stunned, she searched for something to say. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

He was in full flow now, as though she’d unplugged a stopper in his brain. “I’ve seen men with their arms and legs blown off by cannon’s grapeshot. I know firsthand what cannonballs can do. They’re slow, you know, and they bounce along the ground causing maximum destruction. I’ve seen men who’ve spotted a cannonball coming and thought to stop it by sticking out a leg or arm, only to have that limb ripped off and the cannon ball to keep on going, reaping death to everything it touches. I’ve seen horses with their legs broken screaming in pain. I’ve seen young soldiers who’ve run in fear at the sound of battle stood up before a tree and shot. We did that. To our own soldiers. To boys who should have been walking behind ploughs in England’s rain-washed fields.”

“I didn’t know.”

“No one does. No one tells. We soldiers keep it to ourselves.”

He fell silent. She sat beside him for a while before reaching out a hand again and finding his. “I’m glad you told me.”

He didn’t pull away this time but instead hung onto her hand as though it were a lifeline. “I had to tell someone or I’d have died inside.” He paused. “No. I am already dead inside and could not be made more so. Yet it’s in me, screaming to get out. I’m sorry to have burdened you with it.”

An overpowering urge to put her arms around him and comfort him as though he were Yves washed over Caroline, but the laws of propriety held her back. What might he think if she tried to do that? What might any man assume, out here in the dark garden? That she was an easy conquest? Not worth the risk, no matter how much she wanted to.

Instead, she patted his hand. “You can tell me anything.”

He shook his head. “I think you’d best go back inside now before anyone remarks upon your absence. My mother in particular. She has the eyes of a hawk and its claws as well. I wouldn’t wish you to lose your position because of me.”

He was right, but somehow, she didn’t want to relinquish his hand.