He broke off, shaking his head. Going to war had been portrayed as something wonderful, something glorious and patriotic.
It was a muddy, bloody business, something that haunted his dreams and would not let him sleep. Some nights, Arthur scarcely dared lay his head on the pillow at all, since the battlefield would be waiting for him. He had deliberately chosen a room in the opposite wing to Beatrice and Lucy, in case his screams woke them in the night.
It was all well and good to tell somebody having a nightmare that it wasn’t real. The trouble was that the things in Arthur’s head were real. He’d seen them, even participated in them, and now they would not let him sleep.
I often wish I could have died out there,he thought bleakly.That would have been better for everyone, would it not? Better for me, certainly. Easier on Mother. Fairer to Lucy. After all, who would have missed me?
He was jerked out of his reverie by Lucy, laying a warm hand on his shoulder.
“Arthur, Beatrice and you are the only family I have left,” she said, quiet but firm. “I care about you. I believe that this party might be good for you. You should at least try. It’s good for us to be around people, you know.”
He gave a tired smile. “If you say so.”
Lucy hesitated, as if searching for the right words. “Beatrice told me about Miranda.”
Arthur flinched and avoided Lucy’s eye. “I thought she might.”
“You have nothing to be ashamed of, you know.”
“No? My fiancé left me because of the man I’ve become.”
“That’s not it at all,” Lucy said, with surprising vehemence. “I’m sure Miss Sinclair is not abadperson, but she simply had no understanding of what war does to a person. She wasn’t prepared to handle it. I suppose we can’t blame her for that, but we certainly should not blameyou.”
Arthur closed his eyes. In an instant, he was back in the drawing room of their old house in London, before he received the notice that his distant third cousin or something had died and he was now an Earl.
“I… I don’t know who you are now, Arthur,” Miranda said, tears sparkling in her impeccably blue eyes. She was wearing a pink, frilled dress with bows on the hem, and Arthur found himself wondering why she’d chosen that dress to tell him the engagement was over.
“I can change, Miranda,” he heard himself say, bleakly and without confidence. “I’ll be better, I promise.”
It was already too late. Miranda shook her head, daintily wiping away a teardrop and avoiding his eye.
Was it the scar? That had occurred to Arthur, more than once. It was unsightly, he knew that. He’d gazed at his own face in the mirror, tracing the line of raised, vivid-pink flesh crawling out from under the hair at his forehead, streaking down like a lightning-bolt to his cheekbone. The bone underneath had been cracked, he knew that much, and the doctors had not believed he would live. His brain had not been damaged, they said, but then where had the megrims come from?
Some nights he dreamed of the scar coming undone, splitting open like a seam, revealing white bone underneath, and when the bone cracked too, the pinkish-grey mess of brain matter.
He shuddered.
As if she knew what he was thinking, Miranda turned her back. She’d already handed him back the engagement ring he’d given her. He had it curled in his palm, a cold circle against his skin, the prongs of the stone a little too sharp.
“Miranda, please…” he tried again. What would he tell his mother? She’d been so happy to hear that he was getting engaged, right before he left for war. She’d pressed them to marry before, rather than wait till he came back.
Now, Arthur was glad they hadn’t married before he left. He suspected Miranda was glad, too.
“Just go,” she said, her voice wobbling. “Please. It would be easier for me.”
So, he closed his mouth with a snap and did as she asked him.
Back in the present day, Arthur gave his head a little shake to rid himself of the memories. He opened his eyes to find Lucy watching him, her expression thoughtful, as if she knew what he was thinking.
“You might meet somebody else,” she said, quietly and firmly. “Have you thought of that?”
“What, with this scar?”
“You think too much of that scar. It’s dashing, you know. Ladies won’t mind.”
“Ladies likeyouwon’t mind. Society belles want husbands who will impress others, not invalids who get struck down with megrims whenever somebody talks too loudly.”
She sighed. “You are not kind to yourself, Arthur.”
